Transcripts For KPIX 60 Minutes 20240713

Visions began. Visions brought about by the powerful Psychedelic Drug psilocybin. Administered by scientists, aimed at helping people suffering from depression, anxiety, and addiction. Do you ever have a day where you wake up and youre like, man, i wish i could have a vodka right now . Or a beer . Not at all. Which is the craziest thing, because that was my favorite thing to do. The image on the left shows connections within the brain before psilocybin. On the right, after. ticking student debt is a crisis. Americans owe 1. 5 trillion. The burden for medical students is especially heavy. But now, one of the countrys top schools has come up with a radical solution. The n. Y. U. School of medicine is now a tuitionfree medical school cheers and applause oh, my god saving these students more than 200,000 each, with the hope that one day, if youre dealing with a patient who cant afford to have something done, you might say, its on me. ticking this Holiday Season choose the longest lasting aa battery. music energizer ultimate lithium backed by science. Matched by no one. Laso you can enjoy it even ifst youre sensitive. Se. Yet some say it isnt real milk. I guess those cows must actually be big dogs. Sit i said sit lapook good evening. Im dr. Jon lapook. Welcome to 60 minutes presents. Tonight, on the threshold of a new year, we look ahead to new frontiers in medicine. We explore why some scientists are taking a fresh look at Psychedelic Drugs, and examine how one university is rethinking the costs of medical school, but we begin with what appears to be a breakthrough in gene therapy. Nearly 20 years ago, scientists stunned the world when they announced they had decoded the genes that make up a human being. As we first reported last march, they hoped to use that genetic blueprint to advance something called gene therapy, which locates and fixes the genes responsible for different diseases. A Clinical Trial at the National Institutes of health is now doing exactly that, in an attempt to cure sickle cell anemia a devastating genetic disease that kills hundreds of thousands of people around the world every year. We spent more than a year following the scientists, and patients, who are ushering in a genetic revolution. Jennelle stephenson im excited. Ray stephenson today is the big day. Lapook its the day after christmas, 2017, and 27yearold Jennelle Stephenson has come with her father and brother from florida to the National Institutes of health, just outside washington, d. C. Jennelle stephenson good morning. Dr. John tisdale good morning. Lapook shes one of a small group of patients to receive an infusion containing altered d. N. A. Nurse this is what they look like. Jennelle stephenson Merry Christmas to me. Brother best Christmas Present ever. Jennelle stephenson yay. Lapook the clear liquid in the bag contains jennelles stem cells, that have been genetically modified. Dr. Tisdale there are about 500 million in there. Jennelle stephenson oh, my goodness. Lapook the hope is the new d. N. A. In the cells will cure jennelle of sickle cell anemia a brutal disease that causes debilitating pain. At its worst, on a scale of zero to ten, how bad was your pain . Jennelle stephenson we can go beyond a ten. Its terrible, its horrible. Lapook pain where . Jennelle stephenson everywhere. My back, my shoulders, elbows, arms, legs, even my cheekbones, just pain. Lapook can you actually describe it . Jennelle stephenson its a very sharp, like, stabbing, almost feels like bonecrushing pain. Feels like someones kind of constricting your bones, and then releasing, constantly. Lapook pain from sickle cell can occur anywhere blood circulates. Thats because red blood cells, normally donutshaped, bend into an inflexible sickle shape, causing them to pile up inside blood vessels. The resulting traffic jam prevents the normal delivery of oxygen throughout the body, leading to problems that include bone deterioration, strokes and organ failure. The gene that causes sickle cell anemia evolved in places like subsaharan africa, because it protects people from malaria. There, millions have the disease, and its estimated more than 50 of babies born with it die before the age of five. Dr. Glassberg right on the bone there . Lapook in the united states, it affects 100,000 people mostly African Americans. For jennelle, having the disease as a child often meant spending christmas in the hospital. As an adult, she struggled through pain to complete college, but keeping a job was tough because something as simple as walking up stairs could trigger a pain crisis. Do you have friends whove died from sickle cell . Jennelle stephenson i do. Yes, younger than me. Lapook and youve known this your whole life, growing up . Jennelle stephenson right. Lapook that you could potentially die early . Jennelle stephenson right. Yes. Lapook did you think you would die early . Jennelle stephenson i did, actually. When i hit about 22, i was like, you know, im for a sickle celler, im kind of middleaged right now. Lapook what are some of the things that youve always wanted to do that you couldnt do . Jennelle stephenson honestly, everybody laughs at me for this i just want to run, to be honest. Lapook things that most people would take for granted. Jennelle stephenson just basic things. Lapook one of the most cruel parts of the disease, jennelle and other patients have told us, is being accused of faking pain to get narcotics, being labeled a drugseeker. During one trip to the emergency department, when she fell to the floor in pain, a doctor refused to help her. Jennelle stephenson and im looking up at her, and im in tears, and, im like, im doing the best that i can. Lapook and youve got to be thinking. Jennelle stephenson i just, sometimes i dont understand, i dont get it. Like sorry. Im in so much pain, and you think i just want some morphine. And it just makes me sad that some people in the medical Community Just dont get it. Dr. Francis collins so this would be my lab. Lapook dr. Francis collins is director of the National Institutes of health, the largest Biomedical Research agency in the world. He oversees a nearly 40 billion budget that funds more than 400,000 researchers worldwide. Clinton dr. Collins, please come up to the lectern. applause lapook dr. Collins was head of the human genome project at the n. I. H. In 2000 when he made a landmark announcement after a decade of work, scientists had finally decoded the genes that make up a human being. Dr. Collins today, we celebrate the revelation of the first draft of the human book of life. Lapook when did it all start for you . Dr. Collins i got excited about genetics as a firstyear medical student. A pediatric geneticist came to teach us about how genetics was relevant to medicine. And he brought patients to class, and one of the first patients he brought was a young man with Sickle Cell Disease who talked about the experience of sickle cell crises and how incredibly painful those are. And yet, it was all because of one single letter in the d. N. A. That is misplaced, a t that should have been an a. And that was profound. You could have all of that happen because of one letter that was misspelled. Lapook the double helix of d. N. A. Is made up of billions of pieces of genetic information. What dr. Collins is saying is. Out of all that, its just one error in the d. N. A. Code a t that should have been an a that causes sickle cell anemia. Fix that error, and you cure the disease. But figuring out how to do that would take more than 20 years of research. Do you remember when we used to sing lapook . And a little serendipity. Dr. Collins was playing in the n. I. H. Rock band in 2016 when his bass player hematologist dr. John tisdale started riffing on an idea. Dr. Tisdale wed finished setting up and went for a pizza, before dr. Collins i remember that. Dr. Tisdale before the gig. And at this point, i pitched to francis that it was really time that we do something definitive for Sickle Cell Disease. Lapook in the laboratory, dr. Tisdale and his collaborators created a gene with the correct spelling. Then, to get that gene into the patient, they used something with a frightening reputation h. I. V. , the virus that causes aids. It turns out, h. I. V. Is especially good at transferring d. N. A. Into cells. Dr. Tisdale so this shows the process. Lapook heres how it works. The corrected gene, seen here in yellow, is inserted into the h. I. V. Virus. Then, bone marrow stem cells are taken from of a patient with sickle cell anemia. In the laboratory, those cells are combined with the virus carrying that new d. N. A. Dr. Tisdale this virus will then find its way to one of those cells and drop off a copy or two of the correctlyspelled gene. And then, these cells will go back to the patient. Lapook if the process works, the stem cells with the correct d. N. A. Will start producing healthy red blood cells. I can hear people, our viewers out there, thinking, wait a second, how do you know youre not going to get aids from the h. I. V. Virus . Dr. Tisdale the short answer is, we cut out the bits that cause infection in h. I. V. And we really replace that with the gene thats misspelled in Sickle Cell Disease, so that it transfers that instead of the infectious part. Lapook the stakes here are enormous. Dr. Collins yes. Lapook theres really very little safety net here, right . Dr. Collins make no mistake, were talking about very cuttingedge research, where the certainty about all the outcomes is not entirely there. We can look back at the history of gene therapy and see there have been some tragedies. Lapook deaths . Dr. Collins yes. Lapook in 1999, 18yearold Jesse Gelsinger received altered d. N. A. To treat a different genetic disease. He died four days later from a massive immune response. And in another trial, two children developed cancer. Jennelle stephenson understands this is a trial, with huge risks, and no guarantees. Jennelle stephenson this is it. Lapook when she arrived at the n. I. H. Clinical center in december 2017, jennelle asked her brother, ray, for some help. Jennelle stephenson there goes ray, cutting my hair. Oh, snip. Lapook she decided to cut off all her hair, rather than watch it fall out from the massive dose of chemotherapy needed to suppress her immune system so her body wouldnt reject the altered stem cells. Jennelle stephenson i dont know how to feel right now. Im a little emotional. But. Im okay, it will grow back. Lapook a few days after the chemotherapy, jennelle received the infusion of genetically modified cells. Dr. Tisdale is it going good now . Nurse yes. Jennelle stephenson its just a waiting game. Lapook but the wait was a painful one. Not only for jennelle, but also for her father, ray. Ray stephenson let me fix this heating pad a little bit. Lapook . Who did what little he could as the effects of the chemotherapy kicked in, stripping jennelles throat and stomach of their protective layers. Jennelle stephenson oh, that hurts. Lapook she was unable to speak for a week, and lost 15 pounds. And, because having a severely weakened immune system means even a mild cold can turn deadly, jennelle had to stay in the hospital for nearly a month. After moving back to florida, she returned to the n. I. H. For periodic checkups. Dr. Tisdale these are her red blood cells. Lapook it didnt take long for dr. Tisdale to notice something was happening. This is jennelle before any treatment . Dr. Tisdale right. All across her blood you can see these really abnormal shapes. This one in particular is shaped like a sickle. Lapook nine months later, this is what dr. Tisdale saw not a sickle cell in sight. Was there ever a moment where you saw one of these normal looking smears and thought, is this the right patient . Dr. Tisdale oh, absolutely. When youre a scientist, youre skeptical all the time. So, first thing you do is look and make sure its that patient, go grab another one, make sure its the same. And weve done all that. And, indeed, her blood looks normal. Teacher move. Switch your arms and move. Lapook remember, jennelle used to struggle just to walk up a flight of stairs. Teacher and you fall. Lapook . And a fall like this would have landed her in the hospital. Teacher boom. Yeah. Good job, you did it. Bam. Lapook jennelle. You look amazing. Jennelle stephenson thank you lapook i have to say, i was a little nervous when you were thrown and you went down on the mat. Jennelle stephenson it was nothing. It was nothing. My body just felt strong. Lapook tell me about the adjustment that you need to make, to go from the old you to the new you. Jennelle stephenson my body, it almost felt like it was, like, itching to do more. And i was like, all right, well, lets go swimming today. Lets go to the gym today. Im like, all right, my body loves this. I kind of like it because my, i guess, all my endorphins started pumping. Lapook the endorphin high, something you had never experienced. Jennelle stephenson never experienced before. Yep. Lapook what was going through your head as you were watching jennelle being thrown down to the mat . Ray stephenson i was just saying, thank you, lord. Thank you for medical science. And thank you for giving her a new life. Jennelle stephenson new life, indeed. Lynndrick holmes ive never lived before. Lapook 16 other adults with sickle cell anemia have undergone the same gene therapy as jennelle. So far, all are responding well. Dr. Francis collins says it will take years to improve the treatment to make it more widely available. Dr. Collins heres another dream. There are 7,000 genetic diseases for which we know the precise d. N. A. Misspelling. Couldnt this same strategy, this same set of principles work for lots of those, maybe someday all of them . Lapook youve been working on this for decades. Youre at a moment which is significant. Dr. Collins to lead the human genome project and to put that foundation in place. And now, to see that emerging not just as hopedfor advances, but real data showing cures for people. Lapook you just used the curing word. laughs youre willing to say that . Dr. Collins i believe that this looks like a cure. Ive got to be careful. But from every angle that i know how to size this up, this looks like a cure. ticking to learn more about the n. I. H. Trial that may have cured janelle, and dr. Jon lapooks thoughts on genetic therapy, go to 60minutesovertime. Com. I love the new myww program, because you get matched with a plan tailored to you whether youre a dine outer, take outer, veggie person, definitely not just veggie person, bread lover, or cheese lover. All you have to do is answer personal assessment questions and get scientifically matched with a proven weight loss plan. Find out which new customized plan can make losing weight easier for you the new program from ww. Weight watchers reimagined. Join for free lose 10 lbs. On us. 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But, as Anderson Cooper reported earlier this year, these powerful, mindaltering substances are now being studied seriously by scientists inside some of the countrys foremost medical research centers. Theyre being used to treat depression, anxiety and addiction. The early results are impressive, as are the experiences of the studies volunteers, who go on a six hour, sometimes terrifying, but often lifechanging psychedelic journey deep into their own minds. Carine mclaughlin people ask me, do you want to do it again . I say, hell, no, i dont want to go do that again. Cooper it was really that bad . Mclaughlin oh, it was awful. The entire time, other than the very end and the very beginning, i was crying. Cooper Carine Mclaughlin is talking about the hallucinogenic experience she had here at Johns Hopkins university, after being given a large dose of psilocybin, the psychedelic agent in magic mushrooms, as part of an ongoing Clinical Trial. Roland griffiths we tell people that their experiences may vary, from very positive, to transcendent and lovely, to literally hell realm experiences. Cooper hell realm . Griffiths as frightening an experience as you have ever had in your life. Cooper thats scientist Roland Griffiths. For nearly two decades now, he and his colleague Matthew Johnson have been giving what they call heroic doses of psilocybin to more than 350 volunteers, many struggling with addiction, depression and anxiety. Can you tell who is going to have a bad experience, whos going to have a transcendent experience . Griffiths our ability to predict that is almost none at all. Cooper really . Matthew johnson about a third will, at our at a high dose, say that they have Something Like that, what folks would call a bad trip. But most of those folks will actually say that that was key to the experience. Cooper Carine Mclaughlin was a smoker for 46 years, and said she tried everything to quit before being given psilocybin at Johns Hopkins last year. Psilocybin itself is non addictive. Do you remember what, like, specifically what you were seeing, or . Mclaughlin yes. The ceiling of this room were clouds, like, heavy rain clouds, and gradually they were lowering. And i thought i was going to suffocate from the clouds. Cooper that was more than a year ago. She says she hasnt smoked since. The study she took part in is still ongoing, but in an earlier, small study of just 15 longterm smokers, 80 had quit six months after taking psilocybin. Thats double the rate of any overthecounter Smoking Cessation product. Griffiths they come to a profound shift of world view. And essentially, a shift in sense of self that i think cooper they they see their life in a different way . Griffiths their world view changes and and they are less identified with that self narrative. People might use the term ego. And that creates this sense of freedom. Cooper and not just with smokers. Jon kostakopoulos beer usually, cocktails, usually, vodka sodas, tequila sodas, scotch and sodas. Cooper Jon Kostakopoulos was drinking a staggering 20 cocktails a night, and had been warned he was slowly killing himself, when he decided to enroll in another psilocybin trial at new york university. During one psilocybin session, he was flooded with powerful feelings and images from his past. Kostakopoulos stuff would come up that i havent thought of since they happened. Cooper so, old memories that you hadnt even remembered came back to you . Kostakopoulos i felt, you know, a lot of shame and embarrassment throughout one of the sessions, about my drinking, and how bad i felt for my parents to put up with all this. Cooper he took psilocybin in 2016. He says he hasnt had a drink since. Do you ever have a day where you wake up and youre like, man, i wish i could have a vodka right now, or beer . Kostakopoulos never. Cooper not at all . Kostakopoulos not at all, which is the craziest thing, because that was my favorite thing to do. I want you to lie back, put the eyeshade on, and the headphones, and let the music carry you now. Cooper using Psychedelic Drugs in therapy is not new. There were hundreds of scientific studies done on a similar compound, l. S. D. , in the 1950s and 60s. It was tested on more than 40,000 people, some in controlled therapeutic settings like this one. But there were also abuses. The u. S. Military and c. I. A. Experimented with l. S. D. , sometimes without patients knowledge. Fear over rampant drug use and the spread of the Counter Culture movement, not to mention harvard professor Timothy Leary urging people to turn on, tune in and drop out, led to a clampdown. President nixon this nation faces a major crisis in terms of the increasing use of drugs, particularly among our young people. Cooper in 1970, president Richard Nixon signed the controlled substances act, and nearly all Scientific Research in the u. S. Into the effects of psychedelics on people stopped. It wasnt until 2000 that scientist Roland Griffiths won f. D. A. Approval to study psilocybin. Griffiths this whole area of research has been in the deep freeze for 25 or 30 years. And so as a scientist, sometimes i feel like rip van winkle. Cooper and once you saw the results . Griffiths yeah. The red light started flashing. This is extraordinarily interesting. Its unprecedented, and the capacity of the human organism to change. It just was astounding. Cooper it sounds like you are endorsing this for everybody. Griffiths yeah, lets be really clear on that. We are very aware of the risks, and would not recommend that people simply go out and do this. Cooper griffiths and johnson screen out people with psychotic disorders, or with close relatives who have had schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Study volunteers at Johns Hopkins are given weeks of intensive counseling before and after the sixhour psilocybin experience. The psilocybin is given in a carefully controlled setting, one to three times. To date, they say theres not been a single serious adverse outcome. Mary cosimano so, im going to tuck you in. Cooper we were told we couldnt record anyone participating in the study while they were on psilocybin, because it might impact their experience, but we were shown how it begins, without the psilocybin. Cosimano questions . Cooper nope. You lay on a couch, with a blind fold to shut out distractions. Cosimano put the headphones on. Cooper and headphones playing a mix of choral and classical music. A psychedelic soundtrack with a trained guide, mary cosimano, watching over you. Cosimano okay, so, give me your hand. So, im going to take your hand. Cooper everything is done the same way it was for the l. S. D. Experiments scientists conducted in the 1950s and 60s. Some of the most dramatic results have been with terminal Cancer Patients struggling with anxiety and paralyzing depression. Kerry pappas i start seeing the colors and the geometric designs, and its like, oh, this is so cool, and how lovely, and, and then, boom. Visions began. Cooper kerry pappas was diagnosed with stage iii lung cancer in 2013. During her psilocybin session, she found herself trapped in a nightmare her mind created. Pappas an ancient. Prehistoric. Barren land. And theres these men with pickaxes, just slamming on the rocks. So cooper and this felt absolutely real to you . Pappas absolutely real. I was being shown the truth of reality. Life is meaningless. We have no purpose. And then i look, and im still, like, a witness. A beautiful, shimmering. Bright jewel. And then it was sound, and it was booming, booming, booming. Right here, right now. Cooper that was being said . Pappas yes. You are alive. Right here, right now, because thats all you have. And that is my mantra, to this day. Michael pollan it seemed so implausible to me that a single experience caused by a molecule, right, ingested in your body, could transform your outlook on something as profound as death. Thats thats kind of amazing. Cooper author Michael Pollan wrote about the psilocybin studies in a bestselling book, called how to change your mind. As part of his research, he tried psilocybin himself with the help of an underground guide. The kind of things that Cancer Patients were saying, like i touched the face of god. You were skeptical about when you hear phrases like that . Pollan yeah. Or, love is the most important thing in the universe. When someone tells me that, im just like, yeah, okay. Cooper so you dont go for some of the phrases that are used . Pollan no. It gives me the willies, as a writer. And i really struggled with that, because during one of my experiences, i came to the earthshattering conclusion that love is the most important thing in the universe. But its thats Hallmark Card stuff, right . And, so cooper and yet, while you were on it, and afterward pollan it was profoundly true. And it is profoundly true. Guess what . Cooper theres a reason its on a Hallmark Card. Pollan there is a reason. And one of the things psychedelics do is, they peel away all those essentially protective levels of irony and, and cynicism that we, that we acquire as we get older, and youre back to those kind of oh, my god. I forgot all about love. laughs cooper pollan said he also experienced what the researchers describe as ego loss, or identity loss, the quieting of the constant voice we all have in our heads. Pollan i did have this experience of seeing my ego burst into a little cloud of postit notes. I know it sounds crazy. Cooper and what are you are without an ego . Pollan youre laughs you had to be there. Cooper researchers believe that sensation of identity loss occurs because psilocybin quiets these two areas of the brain that normally communicate with each other. Theyre part of a region called the default mode network, and its especially active when were thinking about ourselves and our lives. Pollan and its where you connect what happens in your life to the story of who you are. Cooper we all develop a story over time about what our past was like and who we are. Pollan right. Yeah, what kind of person we are. How we react. And the fact is that interesting things happen when the self goes quiet in the brain, including this rewiring that happens. Cooper to see that rewiring, Johns Hopkins scientist Matthew Johnson showed us this representational chart of brain activity. The circle on the left shows normal communication between parts of the brain. On the right, what happens on psilocybin. Theres an explosion of connections, or crosstalk, between areas of the brain that dont normally communicate. The difference is just startling. Johnson right. Cooper is that why people are having experiences of seeing, you know, repressed memories, or past memories, or people who have died, or . Johnson thats what we think. And even the perceptual effect, sometimes the synesthesia, like, the the seeing sound. Cooper people see sound . Johnson yeah, sometimes. Cooper i dont even know what that means. Johnson right, yeah. laughs its its pollan maybe the ego is one character among many in your mind. And you dont necessarily have to listen to that voice thats chattering at you and criticizing you and telling you what to do. And thats very freeing. Cooper it was certainly freeing for kerry pappas. Though her cancer has now spread to her brain, her crippling anxiety about death is gone. Pappas yeah, its amazing. I mean, i feel like death doesnt frighten me. Living doesnt frighten me. I dont frighten me. This frightens me, but. Cooper this interview frightens you, but death doesnt . Pappas no cooper it turns out most of the 51 Cancer Patients in the Johns Hopkins study experienced significant decreases in depressed mood and anxiety after trying psilocybin. Twothirds of them rated their psilocybin sessions as among the most meaningful experiences of their lives. For some, it was on par with the birth of their children. Pappas to this day, it evolves in me. Cooper its still alive in you. Pappas its still absolutely alive in me. Cooper does it make you happier . Pappas yeah. And i dont necessarily use the word happy. Comfortable. Like, comfortable. I mean, ive suffered from anxiety my whole life. Im comfortable. That, to me, okay, i can die. Im comfortable. laughs i mean, its huge. Its huge. ticking [farmers bell] burke at farmers insurance, weve seen almost everything, so we know how to cover almost anything. Even a threering fender bender. clown 1 sorry about that. clown 2 apologies. clown 1 . Didnt mean it. clown 3 whoops. stilts sorry clowns were sorry scary hey, were sorry [man screams] [scary screams] burke quite the circus. But we covered it. At farmers, we know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum iclimate is the number 1ove priority. Sage. I would declare a state of emergency on day 1. Congress has never passed an important climate bill, ever. This is a problem that continues to get worse. Ive spent a decade fighting and beating oil companies. Stopping pipelines. Stopping fossil fuel plants, ensuring clean energy across the country. How are we going to pull this country together . We take on the biggest challenge in history, we save the world and do it together. Looking around here i see tablets, laptops, printers, smartphones. Theyre all connected to the internet. Theyre all connected. Can your network handle all those devices . Sometimes. Comcast business runs on the nations largest gigspeed network. So you can get the bandwidth you need to power all of your devices at peak performance. If all of my devices could have that kind of speed, i would be dancing get started with secure 35megabit internet and one voice line for just 64. 90 per month. Call today. Comcast business. Beyond fast. ticking lapook going to medical school today takes more than ambition, good grades in biology in college, and an appetite for hard work. It takes a willingness to incur a crushing amount of debt. Student debt in general is in crisis in this country. All told, borrowers owe 1. 5 trillion more than people owe in Credit Card Debt people have borrowed money to attend medical school for decades, but the scale of the debt has skyrocketed in recent years. The average medical student now graduates with a debt burden as big as a home mortgage. As lesley stahl first reported in april, one of americas top medical schools, n. Y. U. In new york, has come up with a radical solution. Announcer joseph babinski. Stahl its a tradition on the very first day of medical school. The socalled white coat ceremony a rite of passage for 24yearold joe babinski and his 100 classmates at new york university. Joe babinski its kind of this transition point, where you go from being a potential student, to a member of the medical community, even if youre at the bottom rung of the ladder still. Stahl yeah. Babinski and its its a pretty significant experience. It marks the beginning of your journey, so to say. Stahl as he began that journey, joe was expecting to take on a great burden. How much debt did you expect youd be taking on . Babinski i anticipated taking on about 200,000. Stahl i cant imagine starting life with that on your shoulders. But a lot of medical students, a lot of young doctors have that. Most . Babinski i would say most. Ezekiel emanuel graduating medical school, 85 , 86 of students have debt. Stahl dr. Ezekiel emanuel is chair of medical ethics and Health Policy at the university of pennsylvania. He says the prospect of so much debt prevents many people who could be great doctors from even applying to medical school. Emanuel most of us think that it really deters people from middle class and lower income families. They look at 200,000, it seems like a huge mountain to climb. And it gets scary. Stahl and it compounds, because youre not paying it off. Emanuel correct. And stahl so the interest grows. It gets worse. And thats a burden. I would think it it diverts attention from medical school as well, if you actually emanuel i think people are stressed by it. Stahl as a thirdyear n. Y. U. Med student, Elaine Deleon felt that stress from day one. Could your family afford medical school . Elaine deleon definitely not. laughs definitely not. Deleon we are looking for pericholecystic fluid. Stahl her family is originally from the dominican republic. Her dad is a retired chef. Her mother died years ago. She agonized over her dream of being a doctor because of the cost. How much did you have to borrow for your first year . Deleon i borrowed 76,000, and if i were to pay that off in on a tenyear plan, it would be 100,000 by the time i paid it off. Stahl wow. And thats just your first year. Deleon thats just my first year. Stahl its unfathomable. Deleon yeah. But i think that ultimately, like, a life of serving is more important to me. And thats really what what, like, cinched it. That i i needed to pursue this, despite the debt that i would be accruing. Stahl elaines ambition is to be a primarycare doctor treating poor people, but she says that the debt burden forced her to consider a different choice. Deleon of course you hear the, like, s prime specialties, where you get paid the most. So you hear dermatology, you hear surgery, you hear all of these things. And so its easy, when youre coming in, to be, like, well, i paid a lot of money to be here, like, i should really get my moneys worth and try to pursue these more lucrative specialties. Stahl even if youre not interested. Deleon exactly. Or at least consider them. Stahl dr. Rafael rivera is dean of admissions at n. Y. U. Medical school. What are the betterpaying specialties . Rafael rivera generally speaking, some of the Surgical Specialties tend to pay well. Neurosurgery. You know, orthopedics pays well. The fields that tend to pay a little less are fields like pediatrics, and general internal medicine, family medicine. And stahl and those are the doctors we have lacking. We dont have enough of those doctors. Rivera by 2030, well have a shortage of up to 49,000 primary care docs. Stahl that huge shortage, that distortion of the medical profession, is directly linked to the mountains of debt. And on the day of that white coat ceremony last august, n. Y. U. Decided to do something about it. Something dramatic. After all the firstyear students had filed back to their seats, ken langone, chairman of the board of trustees, and his wife elaine, let everyone in on a secret. Ken langone as of this very moment, the n. Y. U. School of medicine is now a tuitionfree medical school. cheers and applause stahl joe babinski was sitting in the front row, without a clue that was coming. Babinski and they announce that they are supplying full tuition scholarships for every student. Stahl did you think you heard them right . Babinski i took a picture of the slide on my phone, because i didnt want them to remove it and take it away. laughs so i was like, im im documenting that this is happening. laughter stahl but did you get it right away . We were there, and there was a sense of, did i hear that right . laughs babinski i i still dont think i get it. Stahl sitting a few rows away, joes parents, a municipal employee and a retired cop, had a similar, did he just say what i think he said . Reaction. Dad oh, my god stahl this was the realtime reaction of another father. Dad oh, my god, oh rivera at first, i see students looking around at each other. Stahl did i hear what he said . Rivera yeah. There were there were gasps, there was some quiet, there was some screaming. And then, all of a sudden, the chants started getting louder and louder. And before you knew it, the the audience had erupted into cheers of joy. cheering stahl n. Y. U. s free tuition applies not just to firstyear med students, but to every current student, in every class. They do still have to pay their own room and board, but for these students, its a gift worth more than 200,000 each. Langone and these kids went nuts. One father yells out, i told you you picked the right place laughter stahl ken langone made his fortune as a cofounder of home depot. He and elaine donated 100 million toward the free tuition initiative, and he helped raise the additional 350 million needed to make it a reality. Langone well, thats my job here. Stahl to go out and ask other people for money . Langone oh, i go out, and i look at somebody nice like you, and i grab you by your ankles, and i shake you. Stahl the money comes out laughs langone and, when you promise me theres no more nickels, i turn you right side up. But seriously . I have two jobs here. Im a cheerleader, and im a fundraiser. Stahl tell us how this came about. Langone bob grossman, when he became dean, i sat him down. I said, all right, boss, what are we going to do . And he said to me, one of the things i would love to have happen is for, one day, for us to be tuitionfree. Stahl he said that right in the beginning . Langone 11 years ago. Stahl when he first came . Okay. Langone 11 years ago. I said, you know what, bob . Lets do it. Professor and heres the way it works. Stahl it took more than a decade, but n. Y. U. Now has the endowment to offer free tuition to every med student, in perpetuity. Langone when we announced it, a mother, a pediatrician, came up to me, 30 years out of medical school, and she told me she was still paying off her medical school debt. And she said, this morning, when i woke up and i knew i was coming here, she said, i was convinced i would be in debt when i died, to help my son become a doctor. These are great people. So, we just say, you know what . Lets do what we can to help make it easier for them. Stahl do you think this is going to make you a better doctor . Babinski i think without a doubt itll make me a better doctor. Stahl really . How does it affect that . Babinski for one, i wont be working while im in school. I can focus on learning the medicine and being good at it. Stahl and that pressure isnt on your shoulders. Babinski theres none. Langone i think about the mindset of a kid saying, somebody did something for me. Now, ive got to do something for somebody. Okay . Think of that. Stahl yeah. Langone thats a big thing. Babinski it is a lot. Stahl n. Y. U. s notuition model replaces what had been a patchwork system of scholarships and financial aid. Now, every med student is on full scholarship, with absolutely no strings attached. This model says anybody who comes to n. Y. U. Medical school will come tuition free, as opposed to just the kids who need the money. Emanuel right. I like the a model which i call forgivable loans. That you basically say to every student, were loaning you all of medical school. And if you go into primary care or one of these other specialties that needs doctors, or you go practice in a rural community, like in south dakota, or you go into an innercity community thats underserved, were going to forgive your loan. On the other hand, you decide you want to go into one of those lucrative specialties, ophthalmology, or dermatology, or orthopedics, youre going to have to pay it back with interest. And i think thats a more effective way of getting the goals society wants, than giving everyone tuitionfree. Stahl whatever the model, changing the face of the medical profession is a huge challenge. Consider this there are no more African American men in medical school today than there were 40 years ago. 40 years right now, more than half of all medical students come from the richest 20 of american families; only about 5 from the poorest 20 . This means that wealthy areas have lots of doctors, and lower income areas dont. I know of so many communities in poor areas, that dont have a doctor at all. Is there anything in this program that encourages people to go out there . Rivera if you are from a rural background, you do tend to go back to practice in a rural setting more often than people who are not from a rural background. If you are from an under represented minority group, similarly, you also tend to go back to inner city underserved areas. Stahl since the announcement, applications to n. Y. U. Have boomed, especially from minorities. Deleon i think just the idea that a lot of people who come from backgrounds like mine, low income, without parents who are able to afford medical school, i think that its a huge draw. And i think that its a needed draw for the Patient Population thats served by n. Y. U. Students. I think that theres a lot of folks at bellevue, where i work this is just anecdotal, but i would say at least 60 of the patients are latinos, and this is an Excellent Way to draw the right people to the right institution. Stahl hows your spanish . Deleon very good. laughs stahl excellent . Deleon excellent. Stahl so they can you can really communicate with them. Deleon yeah. speaking spanish stahl Elaine Deleon was in the final year of an accelerated threeyear med school program, one year less than the norm. But when we saw her on the day of the announcement. Deleon youre not going to believe the news that just came out. Stahl . Calling her dad to give him the news . You wouldnt know she was saving just one year of tuition. Deleon already, i felt like one of the luckiest medical students in the country because i am in the threeyear program. Im already decided on primary care, im already going into this Residency Program here. And then all of a sudden its, like, oh, and by the way, like, your last year is free. And its like, it was just this incredible feeling of freedom. Stahl so do you think all the other medical schools are going to at least try one model or another of free tuition . Emanuel absolutely. Stahl they all will . Emanuel and and i i mean, i think almost all of the medical schools had been driving to that before n. Y. U. Made its announcement. And i think they will redouble their efforts. This has been a issue that most deans of medical schools are passionate about. Stahl theyd better be, because otherwise, those deans at harvard and hopkins and stanford are likely to see the very best medical students attending n. Y. U. For free. Langone you have a right to push and say, why didnt you make kids who could afford to pay, pay . Because we really wanted to be blind, in terms of the kids coming here. And we want them to know that they owe us nothing. That, one day, if youre dealing with a patient who cant afford to have something done, you might say, its on me. Pass it on. ticking cbs sports hq is presented by progressive insurance. Im james brown with the a. F. C. Playoff picture. Baltimore is the numberone seed and has home field throughout the playoffs. Miami upset new england. 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