In this episode of No Laughing Matter with Cuba Pete, he is visited by Councilman Cedric Crear, who’s ward includes many of Las Vegas’ most underserved residents. We will discuss the unique medical and social needs of his ward’s high risk residents and his plan to promote positive change. Councilman Crear and our host share a similar determination to be “change leaders” that place a greater emphasis on action than talk. Councilman Crear will also share his unique connection to the value of diverse healthcare providers in Nevada, as well as discuss his wishlist for a new medical school intent on addressing the persistent challenges in the community.
The Hundred Plan
http://cedriccrear.com/initiatives/hundred-plan
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Cuba Pete (00:00):
Well, welcome to Cuba, Pete, not a laughing matter. Today, we have an incredible guest Councilman Cedric Crear. I think we're related Grier Crear. Cause I think we're alone somewhere along the line. We're all related. That's true. That's true. He's been a Councilman here in the city of Las Vegas since 19, uh, 2018, 2018, April 18, 2008, 2018. He is also a star tennis player who went to Howard on a tennis scholarship. Having won many tournaments there and a division. If I'm not mistaken. We have,
Councilman Cedric Crear (00:36):
Yeah. When a couple of conference strategies championships, but uh, I, I used to be pretty good at tennis.
Cuba Pete (00:41):
Yeah. I used to be pretty good at walking and that's all changed
Councilman Cedric Crear (00:47):
The old days where you need to wake up and no aching pain anywhere along the way. No back. No nothing was the good old days.
Cuba Pete (00:54):
We have Dr. Cheryl Brewster, who is our senior executive Dean for diversity, inclusion, and equity and the pipeline because the intersection here now during black history month is racism that exists in medicine and not just the delivery of care, but unfortunately in the educational system to become a physician. And your father was a physician,
Councilman Cedric Crear (01:17):
He was, you know, my father grew up in Houston, Texas, uh, he and my mother, uh, and an area called fifth ward. If you familiar with, yeah,
Cuba Pete (01:25):
You're the fifth ward, aren't you?
New Speaker (01:29):
So ours is ward five out here. There's a fifth ward. That same thing.
Councilman Cedric Crear (01:33):
He grew up in fifth ward, which was a, you know, a tough part of town. Uh, and it's still somewhat is third ward and Houston's another tough one. But fifth ward is a tough one and my parents grew up there. Um, my mother grew up in a shotgun house over off of, uh, Breckenridge and my father grew up in a good home. His mother was an educator. My grandfather worked as a longshoreman and in Houston, uh, so he grew up in an environment of education, but he went to medical school, uh, and he graduated from Prairie view A&M college outside of Houston. He did not get accepted to medical school because at that time, keep in mind, it was very segregated, hence you had, you only got accepted to medical schools that were, um, HBCU at that time. And so he went down to Meharry down in Nashville and he got a master's degree there.
Councilman Cedric Crear (02:21):
Uh, he, he worked at and he continued to really want to be a physician. And then he was the first black student admitted to university of California Irvine medical school.
Cuba Pete (02:29):
You're kidding me?
Councilman Cedric Crear (02:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so he went to UC Irvine medical school, uh, he and another guy named Dr. Cotton, who I became friends with over the years and how he got the Las Vegas is that the first black doctor in the, in the, in the state of Nevada, Dr. Charles I. West heard about my father in California and he tracked him down. You know, there was no emails, there's no, you know, hit me on my Twitter handle. He tracked him down literally and asked him to come out and help him with his practice here in Las Vegas. And he came out of the mid sixties, uh, right as they were desegregating the city because they signed the Moulin Rouge agreement back in 1962, to segregate the city.
Councilman Cedric Crear (03:07):
And he helped him with his practice. His first practice was over in historic West side, which is next to, uh, the Moulin Rouge site, which is now demolished. And we're looking to rehabilitate that, but right next to there and he serviced the black community. And the, the significance of that is that you can only go to restaurants. You could only go to, um, stores if you were black in the historic West side. And he serviced that community. And in essence, I like to think my father was a country doctor in the middle of the city because he had a bag at the house. He did house calls, he delivered the baby. You know, how about a lady who came in front of the city council this past week sent me an email saying that, you know, your father delivered all my siblings and myself.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (03:51):
Wow.
Councilman Cedric Crear (03:52):
Wow. So family practitioner was also gynecologist. He was, uh, you know, he was an obstetrician.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (03:57):
OB/GYN
Councilman Cedric Crear (03:58):
He was a dermatologist. He was everything back in the back of the day. So I'm, I'm really blessed to have a legacy like that in my life.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (04:07):
Awesome Well, great story.
Cuba Pete (04:09):
I don't know if your parents are alive or not,
Councilman Cedric Crear (04:10):
They passed
Cuba Pete (04:10):
I'm sorry, but they'd be incredibly proud of what you're doing.
Councilman Cedric Crear (04:15):
Thank you.
Cuba Pete (04:16):
Because what you're doing, and I'm saying this as a physician is doing things to make people healthy. We intervene when they are sick.
Councilman Cedric Crear (04:23):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I think what's happening too is, and I'm not a physician. Um, I, I, my mother was a physician. She didn't have a medical degree, but as the wife of a physician, she was most definitely.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (04:34):
She was a physician.
Councilman Cedric Crear (04:36):
most definitely a doctor tenured professor. Uh, love it. Uh, but, but I am not.
Councilman Cedric Crear (04:44):
And, and, but I can tell you that we're trying to look at issues and look at problems and try to solve them. And as we came into COVID and coming out of COVID, we saw that there was a higher proportion of African-Americans and Latinos that contracted COVID at a higher percentage than others. And so what are we going to do about that? And so there is an issue that we have to address and I'm in a position to try to fix rate some change to make that happen.
Cuba Pete (05:10):
And then listen, you are, and have a physician who our educational system at Roseman is going to be based on the social determinants of health, because that's the cause of 80 to 90% of the diseases.
Councilman Cedric Crear (05:21):
Yeah.
Cuba Pete (05:21):
As we've stated before, your zip code is more important than your genetic code for survival in this country right now. And that's one of the saddest comments you can make about a, an advanced industrial society.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (05:33):
So let's talk about what you're doing over in the historic West side with the a hundred plan. So, you know, we all know it's posted on websites. If you have any questions, you can definitely go to the website and see all of the logistics worked out. But for those of us that haven't had a chance to take a look, give us a little synopsis in particular, talk about the health center and the ideas you have around that
Councilman Cedric Crear (05:56):
As a, of our community. You know, I live in a house that I grew up in born and raised. I have been a part of many, a discussion of how do we revitalize the historic West side, right? And, uh, we, we come, we meet, we talk, there's a plan and nothing happens. And so when I came in office on April 18th of 2018, I vowed to not let that happen again. And I walk into city hall, we had something called the a hundred plan that I had participated in to create. And the environment was this. I had to ask our director of planning. So can you send me a copy of the a hundred plan? And his response was, well, I know it's around here someplace, let me, let me find it and send it over to you. And that's where we were. So that's where we starting.
Councilman Cedric Crear (06:39):
And I said, okay, let's get it. Let's test it off. Let's look at it, let's revitalize it, let's update it. And we did that. And the first year, I literally had to get people on the same page with what we're doing. And that took a while to just get staff and get everybody in the building to understand that the hundred plan is something that we're gonna execute on in the hundred plan state. It's not a hundred year plan, which many people think it's a hundred plan, which is historic urban neighborhood redevelopment, right? And it's a comprehensive strategy that is going to look at all aspects of a community and how do we make it better?
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (07:11):
Right.
Councilman Cedric Crear (07:11):
So in my ward, I walk in and there's 15% unemployment. Um, we have the revitalization of the historic West side, the core, and then we also house half the homeless population that lives in Las Vegas and all the social services for homeless is there.
Councilman Cedric Crear (07:24):
So our plan is looking at a number of heavy lifts. Uh, we started out with workforce development, we got to get people ready, trained, prepared to go to work. We have that culturally, we have it. And then as the hundred plan is a living breathing document. We've updated it since then to include a health care facility. Um, and we've taken this plan. And then we created the hundred plan in action, which is definable goals, which are definable timelines that says, how are we going to do it? When are we going to do it? When's it going to get done? And we, and I literally just went on the road, hence our outreach to Roseman to say, Hey, this is what we have going on. We would love for you to be a part of it. And I, and I will tell you this, uh, you guys blew me away with one, your response with your timeliness and your response, and having a plan already in place to execute on the things that we're talking about.
Councilman Cedric Crear (08:15):
Right? And so our health care facility we're looking to build right in the core of the community is not a facility where if you're sick, if you have a cold, you go to like a, like a UMC quick care. It is a holistic approach to addressing the disparities in healthcare, within our community, right? So we're looking to go in and to teach people about better eating and exercise, uh, medications, uh, how do you make a community better? And all those things are going to look the, uh, pre-existing conditions. You might have high blood pressure, uh, hypertension, other,
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (08:51):
all the disparities that we know about.
Cuba Pete (08:53):
But let me tell you our ulterior motive. We hope to get students
Cuba Pete (08:56):
From there. Well, you know,
Councilman Cedric Crear (09:01):
That would be fantastic.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (09:01):
That's one of the goals.
Cuba Pete (09:01):
We find that first-generation college students are driven. They are excellent. And in this country, we throw away talent by pricing them out of.
Councilman Cedric Crear (09:10):
we do we do.
Councilman Cedric Crear (09:11):
We price it out. But, uh, you know, there's, there's, I have a degree in microbiology. I have a minor in chemistry. I was going to try to follow my father.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (09:19):
You wanted to go to Med School?
Councilman Cedric Crear (09:19):
I was thinking about going to medical school, thinking about it. I was, I was going to medical school, but, uh, I didn't want it bad enough.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (09:26):
Right.
Councilman Cedric Crear (09:27):
I mean, you really have to, it, it has to be ingrained in you. And I know people that I sat at Howard with in my, in my zoology micro classes and G Chem and Pre Chem
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (09:35):
They lived and breathed all that stuff, you could feel
Councilman Cedric Crear (09:38):
It within them. This is what they wanted to do in it. And this is what they did. I didn't have that. And, uh, so I said, let me try another route. But, uh, I will say that there's so many students that have a passion for healthcare and for making things better.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (09:52):
And that's one of the things we were trying to do, build, build those pathways for those students that might not otherwise even think that this is an option because they don't see people that look like
Cuba Pete (10:02):
As a university, when we go into a community, we go into perpetuity, we don't go grant driven. This is part of our curriculum. And it becomes really, really important to do that because we're not going to be community engaged. We want to be community dependent. We want them to know that those in the community you're going to be teaching our students. Right. And one of the things that we're developing too, for the community and the community centers, as well as the households that we're gonna take care of is why can't they get a faculty appointment?
Councilman Cedric Crear (10:31):
Sure.
Councilman Cedric Crear (10:31):
Well, it's interesting you say that, uh, because for almost 12 years, I was a Regent for the Nevada system of higher education, uh, which oversight trustee for all of our aid, higher education institutions our two research institutions, you know, V and UNR. Um, I was, I like to think I helped in bringing university medicine. UNLV medicine into Southern Nevada cause we desperately needed that. Uh, and so I was chair of our cultural diversity and equity committee for a number of years. And I was a stickler on trying to create pipelines and opportunities, not only for students, uh, but also for faculty,
Cuba Pete (11:05):
Oh one hundred.
Councilman Cedric Crear (11:06):
right? Because, uh, I would meet with a lot of students that I grew up in, in my ward that would go off to school and they would say, Hey, you know, I don't see any teachers.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (11:15):
Any faculty that looks like me.
Councilman Cedric Crear (11:16):
that look like there's no faculty look like me.
Councilman Cedric Crear (11:18):
And then there's disparities with the growth of faculty. You know, when we hire someone on a tenure track and all of a sudden the track has changed for that person, but it doesn't get changed for this person. Um, and then we went through a recession and we had a brain drain where a lot of people left because they weren't being fulfilled here and they had to leave the state. That's an issue. Um, and so you guys are prime to make a difference, not only in the quality of healthcare in Southern Nevada, uh, but also on the pathways for students and also the pathways for faculty to go into positions that go into research positions.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (11:52):
The idea of equity is important.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (11:54):
And understanding inclusion.
Councilman Cedric Crear (11:57):
Sure. Right. Uh, you know, like, and, and I think you guys have done a amazing job in, in the, in the time that you've been here to establishing yourself. And, and the cool thing is, is that I think is resonating within our community. You know, I go out and talk about where we're going. And I say, I had a great call with, you know, uh, talk with Roseman and they, Oh yeah, they're doing good stuff over there. I've heard that a number of times. So keep up the great work.
Cuba Pete (12:18):
Well, if we want to produce the future workforce, we have to be the ultimate of what we preach from both professionalism, ethics to actually reflecting what we say. Sure do about five to 6% of American medical students are black. About five to 6% are Hispanic, a smaller percentage are on faculty. And the beauty of coming here to, to Roseman and coming here to Vegas is that we could do it right. We have a blank sheet of paper. And so the six of us that came out here, four out of the six are women less than 8% of, uh, senior leadership in academic medicine are women. They are the better of the two genders. We know that, but that's, that's another story,
Councilman Cedric Crear (13:00):
Two daughters and a wife I've been married to for 26 years. I, I will concur.
Cuba Pete (13:04):
There you go. Yes. The other thing is, 50% of us are African-American, I'm Hispanic, two are foreign born. I'm including Canada, but that's close enough. You know, it's still a foreigner and the diversity of degrees that they bring to really be educators to produce a future workforce, to produce the best clinicians, the most ethical, the most humble, the most compassionate. And you get that from first-generation constitutes.
Councilman Cedric Crear (13:31):
Yeah.
Councilman Cedric Crear (13:32):
Yeah. It's interesting. You use that analogy of a blank sheet. Cause I say that all the time and it's a great place to be, or you can take a pencil and you can take a piece of paper and you can chart out where you're going and what you want to do so many times where you can engage in such established institutions, uh, in higher end, look at higher education as one of the most established institutions you're ever going to find. You know, we're talking about, you know, centuries of the way that we've always done it,
Cuba Pete (13:58):
They are battle ships in the swimming pool. They don't move.
Councilman Cedric Crear (14:01):
It's very, very ingrained in how things work. And, you know, I say that what we're doing is that we're changing the course of the river. So the river is moving East to West, we're going to dam it up and we're going to stop it. And we're going to go, you know,
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (14:12):
Make make a hard right. Make a Hard Right
Councilman Cedric Crear (14:15):
And that doesn't happen easily in government. And it definitely doesn't happen easily in higher education. So I applaud you even having that mentality to say, how do we,
Councilman Cedric Crear (14:25):
And how do we shift the paradigm.
Cuba Pete (14:26):
and coming out here to Southern Nevada, we don't have the anchors of tradition that you have on the East coast. Let me ask you a question. What can we do as educators in our curriculum that you would recommend to us to produce the type of physician we need
Cuba Pete (14:41):
This area?
Councilman Cedric Crear (14:41):
I think it's a lot of it is outreach. And a lot of is getting into the schools and getting into the students at an early age, you know, um, I had, uh, like my kids used to go to Agassi school and we did a college trip. And when we were in third, they were third grade, fourth grade, fourth grade, and took kids on a college tour. And I was a chaperone, uh, on two trips to DC. And I also went to Atlanta. And so we took the kids and we went to, you know, Morris Brown went to Spelman, went to Clark, went to Morehouse and saw the schools. And there was a discussion out there saying that, well, why are you taking the kids so early there? Uh, but I can tell you that the impact that it makes of getting a kid on campus of seeing that carries through them throughout the course of their entire life, they will always know that they were on Morehouse's campus and saw Spelman and took a picture on the right on the yard and.
Councilman Cedric Crear (15:34):
You know, it instilled in me the importance of it. I'm in a position, uh, and my wife is environmental biologist. And I'm a, you know, a politician now, I guess. Yeah. I'm hesitant to always say that.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (15:45):
It's not a dirty word
Councilman Cedric Crear (15:46):
I never considered myself a politician until I got into city hall, but I am a politician because I deal in politics. But everywhere that we travel, I take my kids to a college campus. My wife's from new Orleans, I'll take them on to Xavier. I'll take them to whatever I buy him a t-shirt and I instill in them. And so, you know, my kids walked around the house with a temple t-shirt on and walk around with, you know, university, North Carolina shorts on, and it just gets them in the mindset of that. And I think that that is probably the best thing that can be done and being engaged, legitimately being engaged, where you sincerely care and, uh, trying to help them find pathways to, because there's so many obstacles for, for young kids nowadays.
Cuba Pete (16:27):
And the other thing that we do is we're going to send our students into the community and not just into the community clinics, but into people's households, that they're going to be responsible for taking care of with an inter professional team, which does a lot, I mean, uh, uh, Lou Brewster, the other Dr. Brewster, not as senior as her, but the other Dr. Brewster, when we, uh, were doing this at our last institution, did something that was remarkable. He would have the, some medical student was not allowed to ask how you felt they had to ask, what is your most urgent need that puts in perspective to the student that maybe medicine isn't as important as we think it is, maybe paying the rent, maybe putting food on the table, being able to buy the medications. Yeah. You have to put things in perspective. You know, I'm a gastroenterologist and I would always hope somebody said my most urgent need, Oh, a colonoscopy, but nobody has ever said that. So I'm still waiting.
Councilman Cedric Crear (17:19):
It's you know, my father was, I used to joke with him. I said, dad, how was your day? He goes good. A lot of sick people, (laughs) a lot of sick people today. And you know, the irony of that, I, I hear what you say.
Cuba Pete (17:32):
My daughter is a public interest lawyer. Actually. She was one of the founding attorney for black lives matter.. Okay. And, uh, when she got into law school and, uh, I'll, I'll brag about her, she went to Harvard. I mean, I married way up,
Councilman Cedric Crear (17:44):
Hey, you know what, nothing wrong with that.
Cuba Pete (17:46):
And so I said to her, I said, you know, I, I know you'd like to people, I know you're smart. I married your mother. And uh, I said, why don't you want to be a doctor? And her first answer was actually pretty funny. She goes, you know, dad, when it's take your kid to work day and you're doing colonoscopy seriously, you think that's what I want to do for a living that our second answer was very profound. And she said, dad, you doctors don't get it. You're doctors to people. We attorneys should be doctors for society. And that's the perspective we have to have our students see that there's a whole society. It's just not an organist. It's just not as, yeah. It's not even just an individual. You have people surrounding you.
Councilman Cedric Crear (18:24):
Yeah. You know, the medical profession is, is, is changed so much. I'm obviously I'm preaching to the choir. But just from my little perspective, you know, people say to me all the time, you know, your father was my doctor. And I said, yeah, he was my doctor too. You know, when I got sick, I'd come home and say, dad, I'm not feeling good. He take care of me. And then when he passed, I had to go out and find a doctor literally. And I knew I'd go to my father's friends and yeah. You know, and it's just though, um, how do you make people feel as though in today's medical profession that physicians in the, in the, in the industry cares about them? Right. It's gotten to a point, I guess this is, it's gotten to a point though, where, you know, you are a number on a chart, you know, you schedule at nine, nine Oh eight, nine 16, and you're you just come in, instead of, you know,
Cuba Pete (19:18):
We, we have to instill it from the day they walk into medical school and it has to be done. By example, we were preparing the future workforce. Medicine is going to change drastically in the next decade or more, uh, both from technology to delivery systems and all these things. But we have such an embarrassing problem of disparities. A recent report came out from the government today that the life expectancy in America dropped by one year in 2020.
Councilman Cedric Crear (19:46):
Is that right? Is that right?
Cuba Pete (19:47):
Not only that since 2017, the life expectancy has been dropping the only industrialized nation to do that. We have to sit back and say, this is embarrassing. This is really wrong. And it's just not a matter of diagnosing and treating it's prevention. It's giving people the opportunity for health, not intervention.
Councilman Cedric Crear (20:08):
Yeah.
Councilman Cedric Crear (20:08):
And that's what we want to try. I try to accomplish what we will accomplish with our health outreach facility. That's going to go in a straight West side specifically that, um, and, and I think that people really need to feel as though that people care about them and that going to the physician is not just going, you know, really, like you said, it's just for your element, right. I mean, they're going to sometimes talk it out to work it out, to get themselves mentally,
Cuba Pete (20:36):
Right? Yeah. Even simple things. A patient needs to be engaged from the second they walk in. I'm going to expect all our clinicians from Roseman to go out in the waiting room and get their own patient.
Councilman Cedric Crear (20:48):
Is that right?
Cuba Pete (20:48):
Yes. Because that's a simple courtesy to an individual. Yeah. And when I, when I had my practice, not only would I do that, I would never introduce myself as Dr. Greer. I'd introduce myself as joker because I wasn't giving the other person a title. And what, what happens in modern society is the patient thinks we're so rushed. I got, I got to get out of here and make them feel comfortable. They give you the story. And the story gives you the diagnosis and the diagnosis, unless you, you know, do what you need to do to make them feel better. Yeah.
Councilman Cedric Crear (21:15):
You know, there's, there's something to it though that has to get more personal when it comes with medicine and, and, and that's,
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (21:22):
it's a different culture
Councilman Cedric Crear (21:24):
you know, I've called, I've called doctor's office and requested to speak with the doctor. And I've said, look, I'm sure the doctor's busy. I'm not saying I need to speak with them right this second, but I'd appreciate the doctor coming back. And they put, transfer me to the office manager, office manager says, you know, the doctor doesn't talk to patients. And I, and I, and I was like floored that she would even, at least it was honest, you know, at least, at least it was honest, a doctor doesn't talk to patients, on the phone. You come in and make an appointment. You can,
Cuba Pete (21:55):
So they can bill
Councilman Cedric Crear (21:58):
well, they can sure they can bill, but, you know, and I also think that, think that like, and I always say this too, and I'm not saying I am above the reproach or whatever, but, uh, if it's happening to me and it's happening to people that I know who are not necessarily going to settle down and just going to take no for an answer, that's a lot of people.
Councilman Cedric Crear (22:18):
Okay. Well, I guess I'll never talk to my doctor instead of saying, no, hold on. Is it, are you really educated enough to kind of push the envelope a little bit, it's happening along the way for so many other people. And it goes back to our, you know, the, the, the challenge of the full professorship, if it's happening to, deans are happening to other high profile people within the system, right. Then, you know, what's going on with the person.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (22:42):
that doesn't have access to the resources
Councilman Cedric Crear (22:45):
doesn't have the resources to do it. You know, they're completely just out of the loop.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (22:48):
They're ignored oftentimes. And we have to make sure we're addressing all of their needs at these multiple levels. And I think it kind of goes back to how we train our physicians and, and how we, as we used to say, bring them up. Right. And we got to start earlier. We have to start introducing the concept of, you know, any health profession and, and get that instilled in them at that early age.
Cuba Pete (23:15):
It also ties into our admission criteria. We, we tend to admit students that in medicine that have not really mastered their social skills. Yeah. So we actually have to teach motivational interviewing the, getting students that can already communicate with somebody makes a big, big difference. That's also that
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (23:41):
The traditional way that students got accepted we're metrics and metrics alone right so
Cuba Pete (23:46):
Metrcis had nothing to do with what kind of doctor you were going to be.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (23:48):
And so now we're talking about what are the attributes that make a good doctor? How can we do what is called a holistic review on an applicant? When, what did they have to work while they were in, where they supporting their family? You know, what are the things that they had to do in order to be successful with this process? And so we're finding first gen students, there's a level of resilience that they have. If they get a bad grade, they bounce back. Whereas the ACE student gets a bad grade. We got to put them on beta blockers and they're all depressed and they can't figure out what, what do I do with a B it's not an A, I don't know, I've never seen this far. I'm thinking in my life. So, you know, you're talking about getting a group of students that already know how to multitask, have that built in resilience, because they've had to fight their way to where they got, and they know how to communicate because they have to ask for things they're not given those things. And so those are the students that we are seeking at our institution. And we've always thought from our last institution and, you know, and Joe can cite those stats, you know,
Cuba Pete (24:56):
75% of our students at our last institution only got into our institution. Yeah. 55% were African-American or Hispanic. It's only about 10% of the rest of the country. One third were first-generation college. Every single graduating class we had had the highest step scores. That's like the boards of any school in the state of Florida. That's eight universities dating back to 1956 with the university of Miami. We kick their butts with students that they wouldn't even interview.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (25:21):
Wouldn't take them.
Cuba Pete (25:23):
at the end. So that, and the other thing we want to tell, uh, the Las Vegas is we want you guys to apply to medical school because.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (25:34):
just not yet,
Cuba Pete (25:35):
not yet in a few years when we open,
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (25:38):
Give us a few years
Cuba Pete (25:38):
because you only have about 500 students a year from the state applying to medical school.
Councilman Cedric Crear (25:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and, and, and then we, you know, challenge that we were faced also with expanding graduate medical education, expanding GME within a state.
Councilman Cedric Crear (25:50):
So the physicians stay within.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (25:51):
So they stay here
Councilman Cedric Crear (25:52):
Uh, that's vitally important that we have to move that needle. So when they get in,
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (25:56):
they stay.
Cuba Pete (25:57):
well, you know, one of the things they could do is, you know, you have these systems here, large not-for-profit systems, uh, renowned, uh, Intermountain, things of that nature that are always recruiting for doctors.
Cuba Pete (26:08):
Yeah.
Councilman Cedric Crear (26:09):
Whereas if they could turn around and say, primary doctors, why don't we give scholarships to these kids? And then they have to, like, if the military pays for you, they go within the system, they train them, you know what people will stay, but we also find that first-generation college students tend to want to come back home. Yeah.
Councilman Cedric Crear (26:25):
Yeah. Well, that's, that's, that's good to know. I know that it was a challenge. Uh, when I was on the board of Regents, you know, this, we had one medical school, public medical school, university of Adam, we did school of medicine and they graduated 50, 55 students a year. Many of those were leaving the state to go do their residencies elsewhere.
Councilman Cedric Crear (26:44):
And look, if you're doing orthopedics and you're going to Johns Hopkins and you're going to Johns Hopkins. Right. But if you're going to Arizona to go do something else and is, that's a different story.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (26:56):
Yeah.
Councilman Cedric Crear (26:57):
And so that's a challenge. Um, and in 2006 there was a great study. I'm not sure if you guys have taken a look at it, uh, and I'll send it to you. Uh, it was the governor Gwen at the time, put out a call because we were at DEFCON ten in terms of healthcare in the state. And he convened a commission headed up by Don Snyder, who was a banker who went in the Fremont street experience. And they created, uh, this report. They submitted to the legislature. And the report talked about that. We were at 48, 49 number of physicians per hundred thousand population nurses, 40th 49th mortality rate was much higher.
Councilman Cedric Crear (27:32):
GME was when needed. And our licensure rate for physicians for the state of Nevada was much greater than it was, I guess, in other States. And so we read that content.
Cuba Pete (27:41):
process to get , to get.
Councilman Cedric Crear (27:43):
the process was, was much greater than it was in other parts of the state. So it was hindering. Oh. And also our, um, our insurance rates were a lot higher for about malpractice sources, greatly higher. It's all those factors of why we can't keep physicians. And where are we at the bottom? And I, and I would, I would beg to say, if we've moved that needle from 2006 where.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (28:05):
We haven't
Councilman Cedric Crear (28:05):
we are now on those key metrics.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (28:08):
So, so right now you still, right now, we are still 47th with healthcare professionals. And so we, we see this as an opportunity, right? To move that needle right, by getting those students that would not normally attend medical school, moving that needle is very vital
Councilman Cedric Crear (28:28):
Dealing with a pipeline. Now, this was started a little bit before we got here at Roseman, but bringing them in, in the third year, after their third year in college, regardless of your, uh, undergraduate studies, that they would get a master's degree with us in science, by a biomedical sciences. But they would also get an undergraduate degree from the institution, uh, CSN,
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (28:51):
Nevada state college,
Cuba Pete (28:52):
Or, you know, any one of these. And that does a couple of things we know from, uh, Cheryl that if you can maintain a 2.8 average or above, and you go to a graduate school, you'll do very well in medical school. We'll get you there. You know, the, uh, the, the whole idea is we keep looking at GME and using that as a single criteria for having a student state, uh, physician stay here, but first-generation college does something else. It not only produces a physician, it produces an individual that can now create wealth for their family, whether the wealth is owning a house or paying for your kids' college, whatever it is that becomes really important. And they become that member of that family that can open the doors for others. That's my father's the first one was finished high school in our family and his granddaughter went to Harvard
Cuba Pete (29:42):
Not Me. Right. Okay, good. Okay. I did. (laughs) All right. And, uh, it's that education and those opportunities, like what your father did yeah. That allow it for you, for your kids. Sure. Right.
Councilman Cedric Crear (29:57):
Well, you know, it was interesting because I always say that, uh, the work that we're doing, if I could change your life, it changes your family's life and it changed your community's life. And so, uh, you're, you're spot on on that. And I do agree with you that people will come and want to stay, you know, raise up their families. And.
Cuba Pete (30:14):
this is where they grew up and this is, they want to come and, you know, their families are so proud of them,
Councilman Cedric Crear (30:19):
you know? Yes, no doubt about it. No doubt about it. Sorry.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (30:22):
I want to thank you, councilman crear time flies when you're having fun time flies, when you're having fun. I know this was a great conversation. I think we have a lot of work to do out there, especially with creating these pathways for students in your area of, um, ward five, as much as say the fifth board, again, it's in my head. Sorry about that. So, you know, we have a lot of work ahead of us and, you know, we, you know, are committed to working with you in your office and doing the things that need to get done to really uplift the community. Right.
Cuba Pete (30:58):
I really appreciate it. And, and our team, uh, starting with Dr. Brewster, the other Dr. Brewster, Dr. Gillis, Dr. Fare cough, uh, Dr. Esposito, by the way, she's German.
Councilman Cedric Crear (31:10):
Yeah. It's all right.
Cuba Pete (31:11):
Yeah. You have the only school where you've got a Cuban named Greer and a German named Esposito Esposito, but every, we all came out here, sight unseen. Yeah. And we saw, I have had family here, so I knew Vegas and everybody's had been to Vegas, but we saw an opportunity here. We are very mission-driven and we're driven by social justice. As a matter of fact, in the medical school, we have a wall of social justice. And my favorite poster, there is one that says, NA Rosa parks, 1955. Right. You know, and I, and that, to me, you know, th th th there's so much that we need to change in our society.
Cuba Pete (31:50):
And if we're going to be physicians, we have to be part of that change.
Councilman Cedric Crear (31:54):
Yeah. I agree. Well, you know, it's a very highly esteemed, uh, profession as well. And people look up to physicians in our community. And, uh, we have to find a way where physicians are not on a pedestal, but..
Cuba Pete (32:08):
we should not be on a pedestal. We should be part of the team. Yeah. That's why the idea of saying, what is your most urgent need, not, how do you feel really teaches humility to the students?
Councilman Cedric Crear (32:18):
Yep. All right. I think We're out of time.
Cuba Pete (32:20):
With that councilman, I'd like to say, thank you very much.
Councilman Cedric Crear (32:24):
Thank you, its been a pleasure.
Cuba Pete (32:24):
You don't know the honor it has been for us to get to know, you.
Councilman Cedric Crear (32:26):
No, it's been a pleasure. You guys are fantastic.
Dr. Cheryl Brewster (32:29):
Do you want to Shout out your
New Speaker (32:30):
Oh, my alfalfa? 1906.
Cuba Pete (32:35):
You guys, this is Cuba, Pete, no laughting matter, but no matter how serious the situation is, or the topics that we discuss, we have to have a smile and maybe laugh a little bit sometimes because that helps others. Thank you very much from Studio A in Las Vegas, I'm signing off.