Episode Guest: LJ Punch is the founder and Executive Director of Power 4 Stl, as well as the Executive Director of The T, and Medical Director of the BRIC.
About Our Guest: Dr. Punch is a trauma surgeon and the Executive Director and founder of Power 4 Stl and “The T”. He also serves as Medical Director at the Bullet Related Injury Clinic, a community-based free clinic that focuses on the experience of the Black masculine body. In the wake of the Ferguson Uprising, LJ moved to St. Louis to join the faculty at the School of Medicine at Washington University. The threefold focus of his career is education, trauma, and equity.
In this episode, Punch joins Eric Reiter and Bethany Copeland, of the Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement, to discuss bringing institutional resources into the community, bullet injuries as a public health crisis, and how medicine can be inclusive and humanizing.
About This Civic Moment
In a time of hyper-partisanship and the reconsideration of the narrative of the United States, what is the state of American democracy and the relationship between social solidarity and civic engagement? How can we reflect on the values that undergird our democracy and civic existence to envision a healthy and vibrant civic future?
This podcast, hosted by the Engage Democracy Fellows at the Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement at Washington University, seeks answers to these questions while providing listeners with multiple angles to inquire, reflect, and discern our civic identity and calling as a community.