Leaders don’t just fix problems; they prevent them.
Some might say Dr. Edward Cornwell III, Surgeon-in-Chief at Howard University Hospital, was destined to be where he is today. His father was a prominent surgeon who frequently brought a young Dr. Cornwell on rounds, and his own trajectory has a sort of cosmic symmetry to it—he was born at the very hospital where he now serves.
Indeed, it’d be easy to assume Dr. Cornwell merely followed in his father’s footsteps, but it was actually the cornea transplant he received as a young adult that Dr. Cornwell credits with setting him firmly on the path to medicine. As he says in the 2014 documentary about his life and work, seeing the technology and surgeons’ skill up close transformed his interest in medicine, “from something a son might do to please his father to a career that had a new sense of inspiration.”
That inspiration led him to the surgical field, but it was his experience working in trauma centers in areas of Los Angeles, Baltimore and Washington D.C. plagued by violence that clarified his purpose: to prevent gun violence, especially among young people, before they wound up in his care. Listen to Dr. Cornwell as he shares how his early life informed this social consciousness.
“Social consciousness takes you from just repairing what’s injured to getting involved in the social aspect of what we’re treating...I couldn’t not get involved in prevention.” ”
To realize his goal, Dr. Cornwell had to think big, to think beyond the four walls of the hospitals where he worked. In many ways, working in the trauma field encouraged his community-centered, violence-prevention efforts.
As his colleague David Chang points out in an interview for JHU Magazine, “No new medicine or advance in surgical technique will ever save a patient with a direct gunshot to the head. If you want to do something for that patient, prevention is the only avenue open to you.” Dr. Cornwell understands this better than most, having treated more than his fair share of gunshot victims.
In his time as Surgeon-in-Chief at Howard University Hospital, Dr. Cornwell has focused on developing the hospital as a center for excellence in trauma, critical care, transplant surgery, and cardiovascular surgery, and establishing the university as a top training site for surgeons. Still, decades into what can only be described as a prodigious career with many professional and public outreach successes under his belt (including a 6-part documentary Hopkins 24/7 and appearances in People magazine and on the Oprah Winfrey Show), Dr. Cornwell sees anti-violence advocacy as his most important work.
And it’s because of this lifelong dedication to advocacy that students attending the 2018 Ambassador Leaders Medicine and Health Care Summit at JHU had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Cornwell’s message firsthand—that true patient care transcends the hospital and reaches into the social and psychological factors that influence people’s health and decision making. For medical providers to make a difference, there’s only one option: you have to get involved.
Dr. Cornwell’s keynote speech to our students echoed throughout the week as they visited the University of Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center (where Dr. Cornwell worked for two years before heading to Howard University Hospital), completed a service project with Baltimore’s local chapter of United Way and presented their patient case study.
We want every student to leave their Summit experience knowing that leaders in medicine are capable of excellence both with the care they provide and the courage with which they influence change, even if—like a young Dr. Cornwell on rounds with his father—that journey takes them in directions they could never anticipate. As Dr. Cornwell says, “We can change the culture. It’s happened before, and it can happen again.”
Ambassador Leaders had the opportunity to hear from Dr. Edward Cornwell III in person at the 2018 Medicine and Health Care Summits at Johns Hopkins University. Learn more about Dr. Cornwell in Transcending Surgeon, an award-winning 2014 documentary profiling his work and life.
By Corie Bales
Corie is the Academic Affairs Manager of Ambassador Leaders. As a lifelong educator and avid traveler, she believes in empowering students and teachers to learn and lead through experiential education.