Spring (Vol. 11, No. 1) - San Francisco General Hospital Foundation

As violence came to be viewed as a Public Health
issue, many health care providers struggled with the
challenge of incorporating violence prevention or
intervention into a health care delivery system which was
designed to respond only to the often life threatening injuries
resulting from incidents of violence in the inner-city. “As a
pediatrician practicing adolescent medicine, I found myself
focusing on counseling strategies, trying to guide my patients
away from potentially violent situations when they could be
identified or anticipated,” explains Dr. Pierre-Joseph Marie-
Rose, Pediatrician at the Children’s Health Center, SFGH.
While this type of counseling is a vital component of the
health care professional’s response to violence, many yearned
for a more active form of intervention.
In 1998, having grown increasingly frustrated with the death
and disability resulting from violence in his community, Dr.
Marie-Rose co-founded the Second Chance Tattoo Removal
Program in San Francisco. The program is a collaboration
between the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN)
and the San Francisco Department of Public Health. It
provides a chance for a new start and a better future for gang
affiliated youth and young adults, through the removal of
gang related tattoos which pose a threat to their personal safety
S a n F r a n c iis s c o G e n e r a l l H o s p iit t a l l F o u n d a t iio o n N e w s
Breaking the Cycle: Violence Intervention
Through Tattoo Removal comes to SFGH
and can represent an obstacle to securing employment.” It became a way to actively intervene in the violent cycle which gripped my
community,” shares Dr. Marie-Rose, a Potrero Hill native and life-long resident. A significant portion of the trauma cases seen at SFGH,
especially the gunshot wounds and stabbing cases, involve gang affiliated youth.
“For some of these patients, the
fact that they are alive is the true
testimonial,” says Dr. Marie-Rose.
The tattoo removal services are offered at no cost and are coupled with
case management. Lasers are used to target the ink in tattoos. With
each treatment chemical bonds within the ink are broken by the laser,
producing progressively smaller fragments of ink. Once theses fragments
are small enough, the patient’s immune system removes them, and all
evidence of the tattoo disappears. Improvements in technology over the
years have resulted in excellent outcomes. Dr. Marie-Rose has seen first
hand the impact tattoo removal can have on the life of a young person.
“Since I live in the same community where I have provided tattoo removal services for more than a decade, I am often approached by
young adults expressing gratitude for the positive impact the program had on their lives. For some of these patients, the fact that they
are alive is the true testimonial,” says Dr. Marie-Rose. This program is the only one of its kind in San Francisco, and since its inception,
has treated hundreds patients. While many of the referrals to the program are through word of mouth, case managers coordinate with
community agencies to actively recruit at risk youth, and referrals are received from the Juvenile Justice System as well.
Dr. Marie-Rose, Pediatrician at Children's Health Center, SFGH, uses a laser
to remove a tattoo near a patient's eye.
Pierre-Joseph Marie-Rose, MD, Pediatrician at Children’s Health Center, SFGH
uses laser treatment in what will be one of several sessions to remove an
unwanted tattoo.
San Francisco General Hospital Foundation awarded a Hearts
Grant to the Second Chance Tattoo Removal Program, which
will allow the program to be brought “back” to SFGH (at
its inception, the Second Chance Tattoo Removal Program
actually started at SFGH before moving away.) “The new
program will incorporate everything we’ve learned over the
last ten years with ‘Second Chance’, and will benefit from the
flexibility of building a program from the ground up,” explains
Dr. Marie-Rose. This will allow an integration of services
with those provided by the SFGH Teen Trauma Recovery
Program’s Wrap-Around Project. The mission of the Wrap-
Around Project is to prevent violent injury and break the cycle
of violence in our most vulnerable communities by addressing
root causes and risk factors with culturally competent case
management and vital community resources. The program
will also work with the UCSF Clinical & Translational
Science Institute in an attempt to design culturally and socially
relevant research projects linked to the program which will
hopefully allow greater insight into the most effective forms of
violence intervention in our community.
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