I recently return from my vacation in New Orleans. My daughter traveled there the year prior and made the St. Charles Street streetcar sound like a travel back into time. This was no Disney ride. It's a working mass transit and we were on it during the rush hour. My Diane and I were separated and she found a seat up front. I was content to stay in the back and hold on.
Doing the tourist thing of asking the question of "Where ya from?" Low and behold I'm standing with another Buffalo Bills fan. A neuroscientist from UPMC, Pittsburg, attending the 38th Annual Conference of National Academy of Neurology. His schtick was about attending a lecture by Dr. Grant Iverson on "The Spectrum of Concussion; Recovery time, Treatment," and how the football player population rates of depression and suicide were no different from the general population. I replied with lets just agree that concussions aren't healthy for anyone.
Well, I knew I was in over my head. I needed to change to my schtick. ACEs in your faces. So I mention how exciting it must be in neurology with all the new imaging technology that is available. And the studies that are showing the effects of ACEs on the brain. Low and behold, his hospital has two floors using the ACE survey. He tells me that UPMC and UPMC Health Insurance is the same and they were desperate to find a way to successfully treat the patients that were using the health care system the most. And of course he came to his stop and that was the end of the conversation. So a good journalist may want to contact UPMC and find out more. Google searches didn't turn anything up. I believe the practice of ACEs in the hospital setting has only been a year in use.
On another day we were traveling up Royal St. and came across three street poets with these antiquated typewriters. For a donation they will type you a poem.
My subject was, How do African Americans feel being hunted by the white man for over 400 years? His fingers tremble as he worked a cigarette out of a fresh pack. He typed away. I missed an opportunity in Seattle Washington for an African American Spoken Word Poet to address the same title. An African American women (In the edge of the picture) wanted to know what these guys were all about. As I was explaining, my poem was ready. So I handed it right to her to read to me. She thought it was excellent. She ends up being a school psychologist. And of course a conversation on ACEs followed. By the way she was familiar with ACEs.
It's nice to know that efforts by all involved in ACEs proliferation has not been in vain.
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