NPR, Univison Los Angeles: How to Prepare for the Expected
In the wake of several recent mass shootings, National Public Radio (NPR) and Univision Los Angeles reporters interviewed Cedars Sinai experts who offered tools and coping strategies for anyone impacted by traumatic events.
During an NPR interview, Jonathan Vickburg, licensed marriage and family therapist with the Cedars-Sinai Share & Care program. The program provides services to students who are experiencing emotional and academic challenges due to traumatic situations and stressors. Vickburg told NPR that trauma survivors often cope best by turning their fear into purpose.
“What happens in trauma is we feel helpless,” Vickburg told NPR. “Many times, when you can make the shift from ‘this is a horrific event’ and ‘I’m so scared and traumatized’, to reframing it to a situation that ‘now there could be good that comes out of this’, that truly is resiliency.”
5 coping strategies outlined in the NPR article:
- Give yourself time to build resiliency
- Find a circle of support
- Make time for positive feelings
- Find daily moments for reflection
- Become a change-maker
“If we can find that purpose again, then we can have a path forward and a path to help others,” said Vickburg.
Survivors can become change-makers by seeking out trainings and educational opportunities to prepare for emergencies.
As a Level I trauma center, Cedars-Sinai offers free “Stop the Bleed” trainings, a national campaign overseen by the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma. The campaign is aimed at transforming bystanders into rescuers.
“The important thing is to stop a victim's bleeding, which can definitely save a life,” Rodrigo Alban, MD, assistant professor of Surgery and associate director of the General Surgery Residency program, said during a Spanish language interview with Univision's Erika Flores. “The campaign is very important, and anyone can take the class for free,” said Alban.
The hands-on free trainings are designed to prepare people to handle bleeding emergencies in the minutes before paramedics and first responders arrive on the scene.
Click here to register to an upcoming Stop the Bleed class at Cedars-Sinai.
Click here to listen to the NPR report and here to watch the Univision Los Angeles story.
Read more on the Cedars-Sinai Blog: Be Prepared to Be a First Responder.