Detroit Heroic: Dr. Olaf Kroneman on Medicine, Injustice & the Human Cost of Being Ignored

0:00You are listening to I Am Refocused Radio with your host, Shemaya Reed. This show is designed to inspire you to live your purpose and regain your focus. And now here's your host, Shemaya Reed. Welcome back to On Refocused Radio. Once again, we are here today and we have another amazing show I'm learning for you all today. Today we're joined by Dr. Olaf Kroneman. He is going to share with us his amazing book Detroit Heroic. And we're going to learn everything about the process of why he wrote this book. The story follows a young medical intern, Mad Drumman, who first steps into medicine, plays him directly inside city shaking by racial unrest, violence, police brutality, and the devastating events surrounding Alaguer's Motel. First and foremost, I want to welcome you, Dr. Olaf, to the show today. How are you doing today? Very good. Thank you. Tell us a little bit about this book and what inspired you to write it.

1:02Okay. I was concerned. The present time, 2026, very contentious. Everybody seems to be mad at everybody else. And so I got to thinking, well, later a minute. I got back. If we got through 1968, we can get through this period. So I started investigating that time period and then thought, how can I reveal to my audience just what was going on in 1968? What we learned in 1968 and what we shouldn't forget in 2026. So I took an intern who he wanted to escape the Vietnam War. Because at that time, Vietnam was raging. And it was one of the most existential threats to young men, my age,

2:05who would be drafted and have to go to Vietnam. So my protagonist, he needs to find a way to stay out of the draft. So he tries to get into the school of veterinary medicine because he figures, okay, it becomes a vet. He's got four years of a deferment. And then he's only going to have to take care of pets and things. And they probably will keep him out of a harm's way. His grades weren't good enough to get into vet school. The standards to become a veterinarian are much higher than physicians because there's just not that many vet schools. So they need to decide he's going to go to dent school. So he tries to get into dent school, but they make them carved pieces of chalk for dexterity is keeps breaking. So finally, he applies to the school of osteopathic medicine. Back in the 1960s, the Army would not draft osteopathic physicians.

3:10They had a prejudice against them. So he gets into the osteopathic school. But two years in, they change their policy and they're going to be drafted. Just like everybody else. So he has one other ploy and that's to go to an underserved area and he goes to Detroit in a, and things that he'll be safe there. Proudness is the first day of his internship. The Detroit uprising breaks out of 1967. And he's in the middle of the carnage. And his first assignment is to the morgue where he has to help prepare bodies for forensic autopsies. So here he is trying to escape the violence of Vietnam. And now he's in the middle of tanks coming down the streets of his hometown and so forth.

4:16Now in the, in the first scene, the three bodies from the Alders Motel murder are brought to the, brought to the morgue. So he and along with a female medical student who's one of the protagonists. Very rare for that time. For that decade for women to be in medical school, but she's one of these very determined young women. And by the way, it wasn't until 1968, they believe was the origin of the woman's movement. So anyway, the two of them are there when they bring the bodies in and they know exactly what happened. So he wants to keep it on the, the QT what she's determined to bring the perpetrators to justice. So that's one of the themes that winds through the story. And then my protagonist goes through.

5:18He wants to get out of the morgue. He becomes disillusioned and goes to the works in the inner city and he sees all the carnage and the people who. We're suffering from neglect and he's getting to the point now where he wants, he wrote. So he's trying to weave his way through this granular problems. And the backdrop you have all the societal issues that are taking place, which really dwarf what we are experiencing now. So we're going to be focused on reading and watching this online talking to our guest today, Dr. Oliv, Kroneman. And we're talking about his book that you can get right now. I'm sure it's available anywhere you can find a book today. My last question for you is the book strongest questions is what happens with institutions, protect themselves and still people.

6:24Why was that an important part to the examine? Okay, well, this goes back to, you know, there's something that's now being brought to the forefront. It's called moral injury. That's a new term that is being brought up and it goes back to again to 1968 during the Mealine massacre. Now that happened where our troops brutally massacred almost a thousand civilians just because they could do it. People, there were perpetrators and there were people that tried to prevent it or were unable to do it. And they went to their senior leaders to try to stop this and to bring people to justice and they found that they couldn't do it. So moral injury is when you see something something that's happening that's bad that is against all your morals and ethics.

7:29And yet you have, I've become a victim of moral injury. Now I had a similar experience early in my career where I was witness to something that was violated all my moral code and ethics. And I was the only one that saw it and protested. So that was one of the themes that I've tried to develop, you know, in the novel that you have the power of the cover up. There are so many people that benefit by keeping things quiet and going away and ducking from their true moral responsibilities. And in the case of my protagonist, their biggest problem is my protagonist tries to get, you know, in touch with the local community.

8:34So he gets involved with a community health clinic. And in the community health clinic, he can help people from the inner city with their health needs. He gets framed for an illegal abortion death. Now at that period of time abortion, of course, was not legalized basically until 1972. And with a worldview, but back then women had to go to criminals to get the procedure done. Or if they had money, they could go out of the country and so forth. So my protagonist has a moral crisis is what he's doing immoral because he does help these women that need it. He's Catholic background and he has a conflict with his conscious.

9:36But then his mentor who was in Vietnam tells him, okay, let me tell you why, why I think we should do this. He goes, I called in airstrikes on my own position. And he goes, what do you mean you called an airstrikes? He goes, our base was being overrun by the enemy and he had no choice but to call in basically napalm to be dropped on their position, which is being overrun. And he said, I would save half, even though I would lose half. And that's how he gets my protagonist to go along with being part of the abortion, fully abortion clinics. He reasons that because the woman who has to have the procedure, he's saving her life. Yes, he is giving up the life of the unborn, but they extrapolate back to his experience in Vietnam.

10:45We think about how this impacts health care and systems, even today, how can physicians become better at this mean when the patients, systems, or other life issues are not being looked at carefully. You got to decide, like the title is Detroit heroic and the reason I use that is that you have to decide if you're going to stand up for what's right or not. Okay, now in medicine now there's a hierarchy where people just want to get, get along. They don't want to stand up for. For patients sometimes because it. So my protagonist puts themselves in a position where they risk everything, but.

11:47You know, if you don't risk something, you're not going to accomplish anything. That's what Muhammad Ali said, who was also a figure in the, if he's a background figure in the novel, because all these people of the 60s come back in as heroes and I try to. You know, celebrate people who did heroic things so that we looked at the higher. Characters of society and then I did the people that are impactful there are like Martin Luther King, Jr.'s in is in the book is in Bobby Kennedy's in the book, Muhammad Ali's in the book. And that period 1968 you had two huge assassinations you had Martin Luther King and you had Bobby Kennedy in that one year period. How did, you know, how did we as a society get through all that. We had to persevere we had to look and try to find heroes.

12:51And so this is one of the things is that it's it's easy to go along with the status quo, but. You're going to have a moral injury if you. Don't stand up for what is right. Listen, I'll be focused ready and watching this online talking to our guest today, Dr. O'Leaf, Chroney Man and about his book Detroit heroic. The question for you is also you look at history and stories. The TSEE syphilis study represents a profound betrayal and medical trust. How does that history continue to affect health care today? The Tuskegee syphilis study is, you know, probably at the extreme, one of the extremes. If you look, I had to study it a little bit. It turned out that it was a study that was started like 1927.

13:53And it was to be done in Alabama. The Alabama state legislator, whatever was they said, okay, you can do this study, but these men have to be treated. Okay, so, but it was a federal program. So then the depression hits and somehow things get lost and there was no treatment. So the men, I think there are 600 men in the study, the study went on and on and on. Even though, you know, penicillin was available and so on and so forth. But I always thought it was something that was done from the, you know, the South. But this was a federal program, which is disappointing to me because we all want to think that, you know, the South was a, you know, the more prejudiced area. But this was a federal program and the South said, you can do this, but you must treat the patients.

14:53And of course, that didn't happen. And so this study went on and on and it didn't stop until 1973. So here, when I'm in medical school and the people that are interviewing me for medical school, the professors that I looked at as, you know, moral leaders. I knew this study was going on and didn't think anything of it. The only, the first person that brought it to the attention and this person is one of my heroes in the novel also. There was a physician from the Henry Ford hospital, who was the first person to write letters to the public health service. I brought the study that, you know, this was moral study. And they never replied to him. He never had a, he never had a response from the government. It wasn't until a reporter got a hold of it in 1972 that the, it was revealed. And then the study stopped in 73.

16:03But I talk about that problem. I talk about there was a book called Purne Koffsen Anatomy, which was a famous German anatomy textbook done by the professor from Vienna during World War II. And of course, the subjects were the concentration camp victims. It's a, it's a famous book. But now it kind of lives in infamy. You know, it's funny. I went to a library and I found an old copy of it and it's haunting to just see, you know, what they did. And my point is this is that physicians can do things that they kind of, you know, can shock you. You expect 99.9% to be, you know, have their patients.

17:03Is there number one goal? But how a society, how, how could people do at the study like that in Tuskegee? You know, where was the outrage? And, you know, again, some of the experiments, I guess in California where they had a mandatory sterilization in the 40s and 50s and 60s. I don't know. I just, it kind of makes you somewhat dissolution. But then it's all, but for my standpoint, it makes me recommitted to what I'm doing and try to look for heroes. When the healthcare disparities are already known and it's not stranger to anyone to those issues, what keeps the medical system from correcting them faster? I think that's a, it's a great question. I think it's a lack, lack of a, like a moral leadership. Now, who is leading the doctors? I mean, the American Medical Association certainly isn't.

18:15I think Dr. Fauci was a, you kind of, was a false mentor to all of us. He knew things that were going on and kept it, kept it hidden from us. And I think we need someone who will say, this is right. This is wrong. Okay. So let's look at, like when people go to medical school, the people that are interviewed, you know, young doctors. If any of these doctors were said to the people interview him, I'm going to be a doctor, but I'm not going to take Medicare and Medicaid. They wouldn't get in, but they're never going to see that. But once a lot of the doctors become, I think, more economically driven. And not, I mean, in my practice, we take everything. Sometimes we get nothing. I would find it unconscionable to not treat somebody who can't pay me.

19:19But that seems to be an accepted practice. How do you put the integrity back in the system? I don't know. I think it's, I think, perhaps you have to choose better applicants to medical school and that really are honest. And once again, I go back to the idea of being a hero. You've got to decide who's, who's team you're playing for. I mean, I, I cannot do anything that doesn't improve my, I would never sell a patient out for, you know, I couldn't, you know, just not there. We treat everybody in the office. And I just think it's part of the duty of the physician, but there's become a distrust of physicians like they did a survey. It seems like, like 52 or 53% of the population, believe in the integrity of the physician versus 75% of the nurses.

20:35I think we've got a positive score. So I think, I hate to say this, but I think we should, I think health care is a right. Now, how can you finance that? I don't know. But everybody I think in the country should have the right to health care. And that should be that should be the, I mean, doctors should start, if doctors had that as their primary mission, it would, I think, solve a lot of problems with at least the society's feelings towards physician. So it might be a direction. I mean, everyone says, oh, you can't give Medicare for all. Okay. All right. Well, I get it. But how can you get basic health care to the population that I believe is, I mean, it's a right.

21:44I don't see how you can, I mean, shelter food and basic health care, I think. And, you know, I'm, I'm pretty conservative, but I don't think that's, you know, that that facing with my moral compass. After spending your career in medicine, and when people read your book, Detroit, heroic, what do you hope that they will learn through your lens, but also the reason of writing this piece with saying something that you party when it's say for a biography, if you will. I want people to realize that, you know, we had in the 60s, we had widespread racism, widespread police brutality, you had a war that killed a thousand civilians a day. You had the inability of a woman's reproductive rights to be manifest. And you have people today kind of trying to put some restrictions on that.

22:58And also, there seems to be a return to the militarism that we were against back in the 60s. But I also think that a lot of things have improved. Certainly, the elders will tell us and then could not happen today. Women would not have to go to, they don't have to go get illegal abortions. Those are still available despite what they say. But there is still discrepancy between healthcare from people that are affluent versus those who are not. There is discrepancy amongst male and women's healthcare. But I think you're starting to see those narrow. For example, in the 60s, it was very rare to see a woman physician. Now they're over half of the applicants in medical school.

24:03So I want people to realize that yes, the times we're living in now are contentious. When someone read my book, they said, the 2026 is catastrophic. But 1968 was apocalyptic. I mean, and the things that we were important to us, for example, getting out of the Vietnam War and making abortions more available. So those have pretty much been litigated and adjudicated so that things have gotten a lot better. But we don't want to go back to, you know, I don't know. I mean, the term make America great again. It's better now than it was before. Let's just keep progressing. And also, I just want people to realize that when you have societal conflict, you have to try to work things out.

25:15You don't resort to violence and, you know, burning things down and so forth. Once again, listen, I'll be focused ready and watching this online talking to our guest today, Dr. Olaf Kroneman and his book that you can get anywhere is Detroit, heroic. Before we run out of time, if you had a last thought, you want to share our beers and audience, what would that be? Keep hope alive. Appreciate that. Well, once again, you can catch this on our YouTube page. We focus nowhere also. I'm focused radio. I want to say to our guest, Dr. Kroneman. Thank you for your time. Thank you for having me.