HJAR Jul/Aug 2023

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS I  JUL / AUG 2023 23 Even unruly patients are someone that they treat as meriting love or attention. That modeling actually is part of the edu- cation. So, we need to model that in every generation, reminding us that every human being, whether drunk and unruly, stinky or whatever, that’s still a human being in there. And human being is sister or brother to me. That’s a hard thing. Empathy must come out of the spiritual depth. It’s a spiritual exercise, not just a transactional exercise. Editor I feel an empathetic healer sees the person, heals the patient’s mind and soul. Even if the body’s dying, there’s still heal- ing that takes place. President Verret And also sees that person. There’s a certain vulnerability in allowing that person to actually affect you. It is an openness to being transformed by the per- son dying, struggling, whatever it is. Editor So, what do you think the biggest challenge today is for college students? President Verret Someone just asked me that question earlier — a colleague who was visit- ing. I think one of the biggest challenges of today is coming to college with a measure of hope. I worry that there’s sort of pessimism and hopelessness in our society right now that is affecting our young people — cer- tain fatalism that the world is actually not ... beyond bettering. That pessimism comes with climate change, all those things. Also, the uncaring that we have and the polariza- tion we have in our society that is creating a lot of hopelessness. I see that as a challenge to many of our young people right now. I will put it this way: that our society, as we are construing it as adults, is toxic to those coming of age. Editor This is our leadership time, and it’s disappointing that this is what our chil- dren are experiencing right now. How can we change that? President Verret I think we need to change it by actually being honest, transparent, by calling fouls fouls, by really coming back and giving value to what is true and acknowledging what is false. We need to be honest with our young people. I would say that the question that you’re asking is a question that I think came up during Obama’s first election where you saw young people voting in large numbers. Eighteen to 35-year-olds popped up in ways that no one expected. I think people attribute that elec- tion to the election being based upon the race of the first Black president. But I think also, it was a generational election. It was an election where the young people were tell- ing the older generation, “We are not very pleased with what you are passing on to us.” And I think that’s a message that, as the gen- eration of elders, we should take seriously. It means the people are asking for things like “justice.” “End this war” — that’s something that our young people are asking for. I think we need to actually give them a promise of a world that is better than the world that we came into. Editor If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be? President Verret I would want us to see our- selves in relation, community with others as opposed to an individual who actually can stand by himself. I want to see basi- cally my dependence and my relationship with everyone else. In other words, I would want a balance between our individualism and our communitarian values to swing and bring more weight onto our communitar- ian values. We all depend and owe some- thing to each other, as opposed to just “me.” Because right now, I believe our individual- ism is overemphasized. Editor Xavier College of Pharmacy part- ners with Gilead Sciences and More- house School of Medicine to address health inequities in HIV care for Black communities in the southern United States. Can you tell us a little about that? President Verret Gilead has been very much involved in developing that program and spreading therapeutics that address HIV, AIDS, and other disease systems as well. Xavier pharmacy programs have been addressing health disparities; and health disparities are not just across race, but also across sexual and gender issues as well. Also, the needs of the HIV, AIDS community, which has been marginalized in some ways, not just in the LGBT community, but also even in the heterosexual community as well. So, they are interested in basically getting better service to the communities that are ill-served. It is about addressing some sig- nificant health disparities, and we are doing this with Gilead because Gilead has been a good partner, not only in health, in develop- ing therapeutics, but also in understanding the social determinants with us that affect the outcomes of those populations. Editor Thank you. Is there any question you wished that I would’ve asked? President Verret Well, the question I would ask is basically what are the barriers to achieving equity in representation in many of our health professions? Editor I like that one. President Verret The solution is not just looking at what happens in the colleges where we send more people into those health professions, but what happens in the professional schools where we educate people to become physicians, pharmacists, psychologists, whatever, but also what we need to do in terms of equity in our K-12 system because the seat of our talent is in the second and third grades right now. We have certain disparities and ineq- uities in the education outcomes that our students receive. We have great schools.