Three Generations of a Harlem Family, A Surgeon on the Frontiers of Pediatric Medicine

Three Generations of a Harlem Family Guests: Co-Authors Bruce Haynes, PhD, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Davis, and Syma Solovitch, “Down the Up Staircase: Three Generations of a Harlem Family” Sociologist Bruce Haynes is an authority on race and urban communities, so his memoir “Down the Up Staircase” looks intimately at his own family’s quest for the American Dream in the 20th century, and at the bigger picture of social forces that empowered and ravaged black communities across America.  Haynes, his parents and his grandparents all got college degrees. His grandparents were famous members of Harlem’s elite creative and political class in the early 1900s. His parents raised him in an enormous mansion in Harlem’s fanciest neighborhood, dressed him in clothes from Saks Fifth Avenue and sent him to private prep schools. And yet, Haynes compares the experience of black middle class life to walking a tight rope – “each generation one misstep from free fall.” His family was no exception: One of his brothers was gunned down in the street. Another fell into a vortex of drugs and crime. Healing Children: A Surgeon’s Stories from the Frontiers of Pediatric Medicine Guest: Kurt Newman, MD, President and CEO, Children’s National, Washington, D.C. If there’s one takeaway for parents from pediatric surgeon Kurt Newman’s new memoir it is this: in a medical emergency, like a broken bone or a concussion, it’s crucial to take your child to an ER that specializes in treating kids. Not just the closest ER. The most child-focused ER.  Dr. Newman’s memoir is called “Healing Children: A Surgeon’s Stories from the Frontiers of Pediatric Medicine.” He’s the President and CEO of Children’s National in Washington, DC., which ranks in the top ten best children’s hospitals in the country.