Spirit of Community Service: Charity Evans, MD

Charity Evans, MD, of the UNMC College of Medicine, will receive the Spirit of Community Service Award at the annual faculty meeting, which will be held virtually through Zoom at 3 p.m. on April 15.

• Name: Charity Evans, MD
• Titles: Associate professor, UNMC Department of Surgery; and chief, UNMC Division of Acute Care Surgery
• Joined UNMC: September 2013
• Hometown: St. Louis

How did you start in your community service activities?

Giving back to the community started with my parents. My parents instilled in the me early on the importance of being kind to others and giving back to my community. This commitment remained through all my years of schooling and now into my career at UNMC. Once at UNMC, I received an internal grant in 2013 to start a hospital-based youth violence prevention program, called “Dusk to Dawn,” an idea we got after learning about the Cradle to Grave program at Temple University.

Why do you feel community service is important?

Community service addresses areas of need in our work, and as my high school instilled in me — to work for justice by promoting the dignity of others. By being an active member of my community, I learned I can have a lasting and positive impact on society. As health care providers, we are blessed to have opportunities every day to create a lasting and positive impact on our patients. Our work in violence prevention and intervention came from a want to create a positive impact in our community, so that they don’t experience violence and arrive in our trauma bay as the result of a violent injury.

What are the greatest rewards of teaching?

Our youth are amazingly brilliant and resilient. Every time we hold a Dusk to Dawn class, I smile and laugh and learn more about the world we live in through the eyes of these youth. Some youth attend Dusk to Dawn two and three times. And each time they return, we see they are more open to conversation. And that to me is inspiring to keep going, to keep talking, in hopes that by being one caring adult, we can make a difference in a youth’s life.

Describe a moment in your career when you realized you had picked the right profession.

My first encounter with Raquel Salinas, Roberto’s mom. When we created Dusk to Dawn, we wanted to tell an Omaha story — one that involved a youth from Omaha, so that the youth see violence not as a “big city” problem but as an “our city” problem. We choose Roberto’s story and had to approach his mother for permission to tell his story. I was more nervous that night, walking into her home, than I had been in many years. I knew that his family had already suffered, and I didn’t want to add to that. I found her to be one of the kindest, most sincere and genuine people I have ever met, and getting to know her and her family over the past four years has been a highlight of my career. By reaching out to her as trauma surgeon, a mother myself, and a community member, I knew that my profession afforded me this most unique experience to be a part of her life and to help her grieve her son’s death.

What are the biggest challenges you face as a teacher?

It’s hard learning about the challenges that go on in my own city and feeling the gravity of what some youth live under daily. The doctor in me wants to make it better for everyone, yet knows that isn’t possible in a single class or encounter.

How do you know when you’ve been successful as a teacher?

When we can see the gears turning in a youth’s mind. As we discuss violence, the roots of violence, conflict resolution and risk and protective factors, I can see it starting to make sense to some youth. For a youth to understand the impact that violence is having on their own life is an early step to them understanding why they have the emotions they do and why they make the decisions they make. Dusk to Dawn is not meant to be the “end all” to violence. If it was, then we would have solved the problem by now! It is meant to be another tool in the toolbox, and it may be the one interaction that helps a youth. And when we see a change in one youth, we know we’ve been successful.

Dusk to Dawn would not be possible or successful without our collaborative partners. I am so thankful for Ashley Farrens, Jenny Burt, PhD, and Ashley Raposo — our violence team at UNMC. I am thankful for the support of David W. Mercer, MD, and the UNMC Department of Surgery, and UNMC and Nebraska Medicine leadership through the years of building this programming. I am thankful for YouTurn, the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Midlands and the Omaha Police Department as collaborative partners in creating Dusk to Dawn. I am thankful to our partners at the University of Nebraska at Omaha — Gaylene Armstrong, PhD, Mark Foxall, PhD, and Lindsey Wylie, JD, PhD, for their relentless partnership in the Nebraska Collaborative for Violence Intervention and Prevention. And I am thankful for Raquel Salinas and her daughter, Oliva, for helping us tell Roberto’s story.