Preventing bloodshed in Brooklyn: UB medical school alum to discuss his public health approach to curbing street violence

BUFFALO, N.Y. — What’s the leading cause of death among young black men ages 15-34? It’s homicide.

That’s a statistic that Robert J. Gore, M.D., knows is preventable. After doing a residency at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital and currently working as an attending physician and clinical assistant professor at Kings County Hospital, SUNY Downstate Department of Emergency Medicine, Gore has had an extremely up-close-and-personal experience with the consequences of street violence.

In response, Gore, an alumnus of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, started KAVI, an ambitious violence-prevention initiative aimed at supporting young people of color in his Brooklyn community.

From a modest effort begun in 2011 with four students and funded with his own money, KAVI has grown to support over 250 young people throughout Brooklyn. Funding now comes from New York City’s Health and Hospitals Corporation, which has started similar programs in other boroughs in the city.

How and why Gore founded KAVI—and how other cities, like Buffalo, can take similar steps—will be the focus of his keynote speech at this year’s spring alumni event at the Jacobs School.

Who: Robert Gore, MD, a 2002 graduate of the Jacobs School and founder and executive director of KAVI, in addition to his positions at Kings County Hospital and SUNY Downstate Department of Emergency Medicine.

What: Gore will deliver the keynote speech about his public health approach to preventing violence. The talk is free and open to the public, but people should register at this web site.

When: From 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, May 4 in Room 2120, the M&T Bank Auditorium of the Jacobs School, 955 Main St., Buffalo, NY 14203.

Media that have covered Gore’s work include CNN and The New York Times. He also gave a 2018 TED talk.

In 2018, as a result of his efforts with KAVI, Gore was named a 2018 Top 10 CNN Hero, a global honor that celebrates everyday people changing the world. He is a member of the 2018 Class of Presidential Leadership Scholars, and has been featured in national media such as the History Channel’s History Now series, TheRoot.com, Black Enterprise, BET, The Grio and more.

Born in Buffalo and raised in Brooklyn, Gore completed his emergency medicine residency at Cook County Hospital in Chicago after graduating from the Jacobs School. He is the founding director of the Brooklyn-based Minority Medical Student Emergency Medicine Summer Fellowship, a mentoring and enrichment program for underrepresented minorities interested in emergency medicine.

Since 2008, Gore has been working as a consultant for Clinique Espérance et Vie in Terrier Rouge in Haiti. He is on the advisory board for EMEDEX International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the global promotion and advancement of emergency medicine, disaster management and public health.