Is violence a contagious disease?
Kynndal Martin was lying on the couch, still sore from the bullet that tore through his calf a few days before, when a woman arrived.
“I was skeptical about her at first,” Martin said. But he let her in. And over the next two years, his decision to open that door changed everything.
The woman, Kendall Bruce, came from Boston Medical Center on a mission to treat the aspects of Martin’s injury that didn’t involve flesh or bone. She is part of a team of hospital-based advocates who work to recast the fractured lives that time and again put young people in danger. And she would lead Kynndal Martin to a surprising place.
Bruce’s work is part of a national drive — decades old but recently gaining momentum — to treat violence as a contagious disease, a public health emergency.
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