INDIANAPOLIS — When Dr. Damaris Ortiz walks into the hospital to begin her shift as a trauma surgeon, it isn't long before she's treating yet another victim of violence.
"It's almost every day,” said Ortiz, who works at Eskenazi Health, IU Health and teaches at the IU School of Medicine. “I've been treating trauma patients a little over 10 years now, and it feels like nothing's changed. And that's been across different cities."
Ortiz came to Indianapolis in 2019 after stints in Houston and Chicago.
So far this year, more than 750 people have come through the doors of Indianapolis hospitals suffering from gunshot wounds or other violent injuries, according to data compiled by Ortiz.
And of those who survive, Ortiz said too many end up returning with the very same injuries.
“I've seen somebody who I took to the operating room for gunshot wounds come back within the year and not survive the next time,” Ortiz said. “It's heartbreaking."
So Ortiz joined a program aimed at doing something about that beyond the operating room. She is medical director for Prescription for Hope, an organization dedicated to reducing crime and turning lives around.
“Violence is like a disease. It's a public health problem,” Ortiz said. “And once these patients come in and get treated, they go back to the same environment."
Prescription for Hope, based at Eskenazi Health, includes social workers, therapists and others who connect with patients and continue once they're discharged by helping them with mental health or drug treatment, education, employment and counseling.
According to hospital data in 2021, before the program began, about 35% of gunshot victims returned within two years with another violent injury. Since then, the number has dropped to about 5%.
For Ortiz, it is more than a job.
“I also had a close friend who was shot and killed as a teenager in high school, and (I) didn't realize how much that impacted me and my family for a really long time,” Ortiz said. "It became more and more critical to me to impact these patients' lives."
Today, she's helping write a prescription to save them.