(airy tinkling music) (exciting electronic music) (graphics whooshing) - Welcome to the Newsfeed, I'm Paris Jackson.

Today, we're going inside a national crisis, an epidemic in America, gun violence.

(soft music) Last summer, the U.S.

Surgeon General declared gun violence a national public health crisis.

When we talk about crimes involving guns, we tend to focus on victims and the perpetrators, but what's often not covered as much is the perspective of those close to victims and patients after injury, the people who treat them, first responders.

The Northwest Reports Podcast from Cascade PBS, published a new three-part series, "First Response," that takes us inside Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

In the series, we hear from surgeons, EMTs, and violence intervention and prevention specialists about the shift that's happened in recent years.

I went into the podcast studio with Sara Bernard and Maleeha Syed, the voices behind the series, to hear what they learned from their reporting about this national crisis.

Welcome, Maleeha and Sara, thank you for joining us on the newsfeed today.

- [Sara and Maleeha] Thanks for having us.

- Let's talk about gun violence.

We often hear about victims or those that are hurt, but what we often don't hear is from physicians or first responders.

Why is it important to share their stories about this particular issue?

We understood that medical professionals are navigating gun violence on a pretty frequent basis, but especially during COVID, we saw such a big spike in our region and across the nation, and so it felt important to talk to the people who are dealing with it day in and day out.

- They're kind of on the front lines of any epidemic of violence, really, the more we talked with medical professionals, the more it felt like, wow, this is such a big part of your job, and they're just witnessing it day in, day out, over and over and over, and so they have a unique experience to share.

- There's a conversation in particular that struck me, Dr. Saman Arbabi, the Chief of Trauma at Harborview.

I want us to just play a quick segment of that.

- [Dr. Saman] I have seen what it does to the healthcare workers.

(airy music) People always ask, do you know, do you guys, what happens to you?

And the answer is, we are all human beings.

That wall goes on, and I am like a machine when somebody comes in, but after the wall comes down, then you start feeling.

- What's your reaction to that?

- One of the things that stuck with me was just the way that every single doctor, nurse, paramedic, everybody talked about how challenging it was to have that conversation with a family of someone who's been shot, and how that never goes away, that experience.

- What struck me among many things is that Harborview is the only medical institution in the state with violence prevention specialists.

- The purpose of this program is to touch on interpersonal gun violence, and so what these intervention specialists are basically trying to do is help people return to circumstances that don't land them back in the hospital, so whether that's housing and security, food and security, not having a job, not having access to further education, just really trying to make sure that they can land on their feet.

- Thank you so much, Sara and Maleeha for joining us on the newsfeed.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for having us.

(soft airy music) - You can listen to Northwest Report's "First Response" series anywhere you get your podcast.

(exciting music) On October 15th, Cascade PBS and the Seattle Public Library Foundation partnered (soft music) to help ease election anxiety with the live podcast taping of "Text Me Back!"

Hosted by Lindy West and Megan Hatcher Mays at the downtown Seattle location.

I was there as MC for the live event.

If you wanna hear the talk, look for the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival podcast bonus episode everywhere you get your podcasts.

I'm Paris Jackson, thank you for watching the newsfeed, your destination (exciting music) for nonprofit northwest news, (exciting electronic music) go to cascadepbs.org, now to "PBS NewsHour."

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