“I had looked at the big society through public health, but I wanted to look at individuals,” Comer said. “So the question became, how do you prevent this from happening? What could I do?” Their living conditions were fragmented and terrible,” he said. He volunteered with people who had been “thrown off the welfare rolls. ![]() Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, a noncombatant service under the U.S. So Comer decided to go into public health and joined the U.S. “They exposed us to everything educational they could find … and they gave us an experience at home that was motivational - caring, guidance, rules, high expectations and they preferred to teach (rather) than punish.”Ĭomer had planned to become a general practitioner, but had second thoughts during his internship when “I observed kids just like my friends who were going on the same downhill course as my friends.” “We had the same exposures, the same near involvements” with potential trouble. In his family, “We had the kind of developmental experience so that our parents protected us,” Comer said. ![]() We were able to be successful in school and had opportunities in life, good opportunities in life, and my friends didn’t, even though they were just as smart.” One of his friends “died of alcoholism, the other spent his time in and out of mental health institution and the other spent significant jail time,” Comer said. “I realized the difference was we had a good developmental experience. That town was East Chicago, Ind., “a small, tough, steel mill town tucked in between Gary, Ind., and Chicago, Ill.” ![]() “I was doing my internship in my hometown and I saw my friends going down a downhill course,” he said. “The two of them sent their five children to college (who) received 13 college degrees, and it was the fact that they gave us a home experience that made that possible, that changed my life trajectory.”Ĭomer knew his success had to have been instilled by his family life.
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