As an emergency physician at Kings County Hospital Center, Dr. Rob Gore has faced many traumatic situations that he’d rather forget. But some moments stick with him.”Probably the worst thing that I’ve ever had to do is tell a 15-year-old’s mother that her son was killed,” Gore said. “If I can’t keep somebody alive, I’ve failed.”Gore, a Brooklyn native, finds violent injuries particularly hard to stomach — a feeling compounded by the fact that many of the victims he treats are young men of color. “When I became an ER doc, my patients looked just like me,” he said. “A lot of this stuff really hits home.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, homicide is the No. 1 cause of death for black men ages 15 to 34.  “Conflict’s not avoidable. But violent conflict is,” Gore said. “Seeing a lot of the traumas that take place at work, or in the neighborhood, you realize, ‘I don’t want this to happen anymore. What do we do about it?'”

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