The bodies keep coming : dispatches from a black trauma surgeon on racism, violence, and how we heal

A tour de force that diagnoses the structural root of the violence that plagues us all. Trauma surgeon and professor Dr. Brian H. Williams has seen it all: gunshot wounds, stabbings, and traumatic brain injuries. In The Bodies Keep Coming , Williams ushers us into the trauma bay, where the wounds of a national emergency amass. As a Harvard-trained physician, Williams learned to keep his head down and his scalpel ready. As a Black man, he learned to swallow the rage when patients told him to take out the trash. Just days after the tragic police shootings of two Black men, Williams tried to save the lives of police officers shot in Dallas in the deadliest incident for US law enforcement since 9/11. Thrust into the spotlight in a nation that loves feel-good stories about heroism more than hard truths about racism, Williams came to rethink everything he thought he knew about medicine, injustice, and what true healing looks like. Now, in raw and intimate detail, Williams narrates not only the events of that night in 2016, but the grief and anger of a Black doctor on the front lines of trauma care. Working in the physician-writer tradition of Atul Gawande and Damon Tweedy, Williams diagnoses the roots of the violence that plagues us. He draws a through line between white supremacy, gun violence, and the bodies he tries to revive, and he trains his surgeon's gaze on the structural ills that manifest themselves in the bodies of his patients. What if racism is a feature of our healthcare system, not a bug? What if profiting from racial inequality is exactly what it was designed to do? Black and brown bodies will continue to be wracked by all types of violence, Williams argues, until something changes. Until we transform policy and law with compassion and care, the bodies will keep coming. pbA tour de force that diagnoses the structural root of the violence that plagues us all./b/ppTrauma surgeon and professor Dr. Brian H. Williams has seen it all: gunshot wounds, stabbings, and traumatic brain injuries. In iThe Bodies Keep Coming/i, Williams ushers us into the trauma bay, where the wounds of a national emergency amass./ppAs a Harvard-trained physician, Williams learned to keep his head down and his scalpel ready. As a Black man, he learned to swallow the rage when patients told him to take out the trash. Just days after the tragic police shootings of two Black men, Williams tried to save the lives of white police officers shot in Dallas in the deadliest incident for US law enforcement since 9/11. Thrust into the spotlight in a nation that loves feel-good stories about heroism more than hard truths about racism, Williams came to rethink everything he thought he knew about medicine, injustice, and what true healing looks like./ppNow, in raw and intimate detail, Williams narrates not only the events of that night in 2016, but the grief and anger of a Black doctor on the front lines of trauma care. Working in the physician-writer tradition of Atul Gawande and Damon Tweedy, Williams diagnoses the roots of the violence that plagues us. He draws a through line between white supremacy, gun violence, and the bodies he tries to revive, and he trains his surgeon's gaze on the structural ills that manifest themselves in the bodies of his patients. What if racism is a feature of our healthcare system, not a bug? What if profiting from racial inequality is exactly what it was designed to do?/ppBlack and brown bodies will continue to be wracked by all types of violence, Williams argues, until something changes. Until we transform policy and law with compassion and care, the bodies will keep coming./p A tour de force that diagnoses the structural root of the violence that plagues us all Trauma surgeon and professor Dr. Brian H. Williams has seen it all, from gunshot wounds to stabbings to traumatic brain injuries. In The Bodies Keep Coming , Williams ushers us into the trauma bay, where the wounds of a national emergency amass. As a Harvard-trained physician, he learned to keep his head down and his scalpel ready. As a Black man, he learned to swallow the rage when patients told him to take out the trash. Just days after the tragic police shootings of two Black men, Williams tried to save the lives of police officers shot in Dallas in the deadliest incident for U.S. law enforcement since 9/11. Thrust into the spotlight in a nation that loves feel-good stories about heroism more than hard truths about racism, Williams came to rethink everything he thought he knew about medicine, injustice, and what true healing looks like. Now, in raw and intimate detail, Williams narrates not only the events of that night in 2016, but the grief and anger of a Black doctor on the front lines of trauma care. Working in the physician-writer tradition of Atul Gawande and Damon Tweedy, Williams diagnoses the roots of the violence that plagues us. He draws a through-line between white supremacy, gun violence, and the bodies he tries to revive, and he trains his surgeon's eye on the structural ills that manifest themselves in the bodies of his patients. What if racism is a feature of our healthcare system, not a bug? What if profiting from racial inequality is exactly what it was designed to do? Black and brown bodies will continue to be wracked by all types of violence, Williams argues, until something changes. Until we transform policy and law with compassion and care, the bodies will keep coming. Cover Page 1 Title Page 8 Copyright Page 9 Dedication 10 Contents 14 Part I: Unconscious 18 1. Tagged and Bagged 20 2. Demons 34 3. My Comfort and My Pain 42 4. The Long Blue Line 52 5. A New Calling 68 6. The Gradys 86 Part II: Code Yellow 98 7. “Bald, Black, and Suspicious” 100 8. Traumatic Arrest 112 9. Hail Mary 120 10. Seconds Matter 126 11. End of Watch 134 Part III: Shock 142 12. A Fool for a Patient 144 13. God’s Token 152 14. Backlash 166 15. Bridge 174 Part IV: Awakening 190 16. Failure by Design 192 17. Race Is Not a Risk Factor 210 18. Anatomy of a Gunshot Wound 224 19. A Moment of Silence 242 Resources 254 Acknowledgments 258 Notes 260 "Dr. Brian H. Williams has seen it all, from gunshot wounds to traumatic brain injuries. In The Bodies Keep Coming, Williams ushers us into the trauma bay, where the wounds of a national emergency amass. Black bodies will continue to be wracked by violence, racism, and healthcare inequities until we enact changes of policy and law"-- Provided by publisher