I know many people who are not doctors that are capable of being one. What separates them from doctors is not intellect or drive, but the opportunity to go to medical school. Just as in professional athletics, opportunity and circumstance can determine the fate of two equally talented people. Educational crossroads direct people on radically divergent paths with often equally divergent outcomes.

If you queried these people who own the potential to be a doctor, many would say that our job is one that they would not be able to do. We forget that what seems routine to us is disturbing to most others. In general people choose to eschew the social ills, violent injury, death, despair, sounds, and smells that cross our threshold daily.

Emergency departments, like people, are as varied as the fish in the ocean. Some emergency departments cater to a relatively tame population. At these places, shootings are rare. Almost everyone has a home and a family doctor and all of the children are above average. While practicing at these pristine spots is no cake walk, there is no comparison to practicing in neighborhoods at the other end of the spectrum.

The doctors and nurses who work in the violent urban zones of our country do the hard work that many emergency physicians say they could not do. I count myself in that group. It’s not that I couldn’t work in urban Detroit, I just don’t want to. My hat is off to those who do.

My friend and colleague, Dr. Jim Young, recommended that I read a book written by Dr. Sampson Davis. I downloaded it to the app on my iPad as we were talking. I’m better for reading it because it gave me fresh insight into the cultural abyss that exists in many cities and the challenges that exist in those emergency departments. “Living and Dying in Brick City” was written for lay people, but emergency physicians will find the book to be captivating and informative as well.

Dr. Davis is an emergency physician who practiced at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center at the time he wrote the book. The neighborhood that the hospital serves is ground zero for every social ill imaginable. I’m sure many emergency physicians around the country could have written a book on this subject. Dr. Davis, however, writes from a position of moral authority that few others can claim. First, he is an African American. Second, he grew up running the same angry streets that surround the hospital.