Collapse<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/aside>\n\n\n\nTHE STUFF YOU DON\u2019T THINK ABOUT<\/h4>\n\n\n\n Client advocates point out that so many victims of firearm assaults encounter obstacles most couldn\u2019t conceive. It\u2019s the stuff most of us have the luxury of not considering. For instance, Yetman says they had a patient, a mother, who was in the operating room. And her child needed to breastfeed. They were able to ensure the baby received formula and diapers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s just one example of that \u201clittle bit extra.\u201d A great deal of that extra occurs when a patient is ready to be discharged. Many times, when a gunshot patient comes in, their clothes must be cut away so doctors and nurses can triage or operate. Turning the Tide\u2019s office is stocked with a cabinet full of shirts, shorts, sweatpants, socks and undergarments so that the patients can leave with new, clean clothes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\nTop left, Turning the Tide has a cabinet stocked with clothes for victims who\u2019ve been shot and had their clothes cut away in surgery; Hink, top right, in a meeting with her team. Above, much of the work for client advocates like Yetman takes place out in Charleston\u2019s communities. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\nOnce discharged, they encounter a new list of concerns: food insecurity at home, cell phone service ending if they missed the due date on a bill while in the hospital, and simply feeling safe back in their community. \u201cWe do want to see a reduction in what we call recidivism, right? People being reinjured again,\u201d says Yetman. \u201cBut what really matters to me is, does my patient go home? Are they safe? Are their families safe?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most of the patients who accept after-discharge services and stay on as clients aren\u2019t heading back to the Charleston that was named the top U.S. city to visit in July 2022 by Travel + Leisure<\/em> magazine readers, welcoming some 7 million visitors per year. In 2022, tourism brought $12.8 billion to the city in hospitality dollars, according to The [Charleston] Post and Courier<\/em>. Turning the Tide\u2019s clients are heading back into communities like North Charleston, West Ashley and the West Side. Those neighborhoods are home to vulnerable populations, with high poverty and low education rates when compared to the rest of the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\nAbove, Charleston\u2019s economic disparity can be seen here. Gadsden Green Homes, public housing in the West Side neighborhood, sits directly across President Street from stunning homes. Below left, designer high rises tower over another housing complex, and, below right, laundry hangs on the lines of Gadsden Green.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\nGentrification is pushing out residents, most of whom are Black and brown. Some clients are returning to public housing, where renovations and updates are few and there\u2019s pest infestations and dilapidated playground equipment. Corner memorials, with teddy bears and remembrance letters, pay respects to the communities\u2019 most recent murder victims. <\/p>\n\n\n\nA memorial\u00a0for a 32-year-old man who died at this spot in downtown Charleston after being shot nearby.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nMass shootings prey on our national conscience when they happen. Uvalde. Parkland. Newtown. Naturally, they make us imagine the worst\u2009\u2014\u2009an active shooter coming into a school and killing our children. But Hink notes that those shootings comprise a tiny fraction of firearm injuries and deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think I definitely experienced the shock of mass shootings, but I realized what we all now know,\u201d she says. \u201cMost people that are being shot are being shot all around us every day in our communities,\u201d she says, \u201cand their stories don\u2019t make the headlines. But it\u2019s happening all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMost people that are being shot are being shot all around us every day in our communities, and their stories don\u2019t make the headlines. But it\u2019s happening all the time.\u201d \u2014Dr. Ashley Hink \u201905<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Ninety-three percent of patients the program serves are Black, and 84 percent are male. And Green, whose research focuses on violence prevention, says that disparity is underscored even further when it comes to children. In a national study she conducted with colleagues, they found that the rate of firearm homicide deaths for Black children is nine times greater than that of white children. \u201cYou can\u2019t really talk about gun violence without talking about racial disparity,\u201d she says, \u201cbecause a Black person and a white person living in Charleston are living two very different lives most likely on average.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Community members view gun violence as an existential threat to the health of their communities\u2019 future. Chantelle Mitchell is a community activist, mentor and motivational speaker in Charleston who works with Turning the Tide as a community partner with Youth Advocate Program, a nonprofit focusing on foster care and community-based services. And when asked to articulate how prevalent gun violence is in the community, she doesn\u2019t need statistics. She has firsthand experience. She lost one of the youths she was working with to gun violence back in June. And her daughter lost her best friend two years ago. He was 15. \u201cThese kids are out there playing football, double dutching,\u201d she says, \u201cbut when you see these kids coming in with gunshot wounds, you have to figure out why.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Mitchell says that Turning the Tide has remedied what was a major problem for gunshot victims. \u201cWhat they realized when they created the program was once [victims] are discharged, no one was following up with them. These are 12-, 13-year-old kids,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hink says that three years ago, firearms victims who\u2019d come to MUSC were getting shot, receiving medical care and then being sent back out to those communities with no connection or resources. Now, Turning the Tide helps victims and their families establish lines of credit, stocks their fridges and pantries with food, and encourages them to complete their GEDs and get driver\u2019s licenses. Smalls serves as a father figure to many of his clients, even helping some get staff jobs at MUSC. Talking about those successes makes Smalls smile his gentle grin. There\u2019s also something distinct about his mentorship and satisfaction. He\u2019s personally known the toll of gun violence in Charleston, as his 17-year-old son was shot and killed in North Charleston in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think one of the most serious statements that I\u2019ve ever heard a parent say, that \u2018I\u2019d rather go visit my child in jail than visit him at the grave,\u2019\u201d Smalls says. \u201cI understand that point. A gravesite is hard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NEXT LEVEL<\/h4>\n\n\n\n Hink admits she\u2019s most at home in the trauma bay. It\u2019s there and in environments like the ICU she says she can do what she does best, \u201ccreating organization out of chaos,\u201d as she cares for injured and critically ill patients. Hink\u2019s office in MUSC\u2019s Clinical Sciences Building holds a couple of keepsakes that signify her connections to those patients. There\u2019s the painting of a crane by a former patient, and a glass pyramid a former patient\u2019s family gave her. Etched in it is the word, \u201cINSPIRE.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s a huge difference in the way that Dr. Hink interacts with patients versus maybe other attending physicians or other health care providers,\u201d Yetman says. \u201cShe wants to know how patients are doing after she is done caring for them. She thinks about them. She remembers them. She focuses on the humanity of the individual.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That same level of compassion extends to the fiber of her team\u2019s members. Words colleagues use to describe Hink apply to the program. Sturdy. Strong. Unflinching. Refusing to accept the status quo. \u201cShe\u2019s a beast,\u201d another doctor says of her in passing. \u201cShe\u2019s next level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hink meets with the Turning the Tide team on Monday afternoons, celebrating their wins with a satisfactory nod. Empathy, too, as she worries about her team. \u201cThey come in, and they\u2019re helping patients and families when they are in their darkest moments and they\u2019re terrified,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of vicarious trauma that those of us experience in doing this work, and they have a really hard job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She continues working to ensure that Turning the Tide is sustainable. She would like to hire more client advocates to decrease caseloads. She\u2019s still poring over data from Turning the Tide\u2019s first three years, but says the numbers anecdotally suggest reductions in repeat injuries, an increase in the number of patients returning to MUSC for clinical follow-up appointments and a reduction in unplanned emergency room visits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hink also meets with city leaders and politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, who voice support for her work. She looks for more community partners, like schools, criminal justice victim advocates, family counselors, food and housing nonprofits, and law enforcement. She lectures on topics ranging from firearm violence epidemiology to violence intervention strategies. (And she\u2019s a new mom. She and her partner just welcomed a baby girl in December.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Hink does it all in her next-levelness to address the essential question that drives her. \u201cAt the end of the day, in our country, firearms are the leading cause of death for kids,\u201d she says. \u201cHow is it that we are okay with that and we\u2019re not doing more to prevent it?\u201d <\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dr. Ashley Hink \u201905 takes on gun violence in Charleston, S.C., by treating it as a public health crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":4525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"views\/single-immersive.blade.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-immersive-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"backgroundColor\":\"orange_400\",\"displayCategoryID\":5,\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"subtitle\":\"Dr. Ashley Hink \u201905 takes on gun violence in Charleston, S.C., by treating it as a public health crisis. Photography by Joshua Steadman.\"}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[32,55,106,210,226,229,248,274,276,417,430,457,506,644,646,780,814,822,823,1193,1294],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"class_list":["post-4516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-bets","category-stories","tag-adrianna-bellamy","tag-alliance-of-aids-services","tag-ashley-hink","tag-cat-yetman","tag-chantelle-mitchell","tag-charleston","tag-christa-green","tag-college-of-humanities-and-social-sciences","tag-college-of-sciences","tag-eric-schott","tag-family-violence-center","tag-gadsden-green-homes","tag-harborview-medical-center","tag-katrina-kiora","tag-keith-smalls","tag-medical-university-of-south-carolina","tag-mother-emanuel-ame-church","tag-musc","tag-musc-shawn-jenkins-childrens-hospital","tag-turning-the-tide","tag-youth-advocate-program"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":5,"name":"Best Bets","slug":"best-bets","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":56,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4516"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5242,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4516\/revisions\/5242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4516"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=4516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}