>> become. i'm keith jones. today we discuss a new indidiet trend. it's popular with celebrities who say it's helping them lose weight and get healthy. we does the traits of a great leader with secretary of defense robert gaits. first we begin with a brand new program that some find shocking. shock because it's necessary these days. it's called fighting chance. doctors and nurses train local residents to give gunshot victims first aid. joining me to explain the fighting chance are scott charles and dr. tim brian.

dr. brian is a u.s. special operations veteran who servied s a combat veteran. thank you so much for joining us. i think people hear this and go are there that many gunshot victims where this is a necessity? >> unfortunately, i would say the answer would have to be yes. i think scott could probably talk about more specific numbers. it's shocking the numbers. >> city wide this is a city that sees -- last year i think we had 1200 shootings. that's up by about 18% over the year before. . when you ask the question of is this necessary, i think it is. i mean, even when you have a situation as we had in boston with the boston marathon bombing, what you saw in that situation for lay people coming out and rendering care. that's one time. this is a city where we can consistently depend on folks getting shot night after night

and certainly on the weekends. >> can you draw a parallel to cpr training? should it be as common as that? >> i think in the long-term that would be the goal. the white house recently released an initiative called stop the bleed which basically states that it should be like cpr training. i think if you look back through time at cpr, you find we haven't reached the goals we would like to with the community having access to cpr training and aed. that's the goal if we continue to see these rates of violent injuries in the community. >> do we expect bystanders, though, in a community like north philadelphia to run toward a gunshot if they hear it? is that a reality we hope for, and is that dangerous? >> one of the first aspects of the training is safety first, always. whether you're dealing with military personnel or training the civilians, it's always your

safety first. we're not asking anyone to initiate bystander aid. you'll find when you go to things like boston, people do it. if you're going to do it and initiate that and make that choice yourself, you should know exactly how best to do it as safely as possible. that's really what our goal is. >> that's one of the things to keep in mind. it's not as though folks aren't doing this already on some level. working in the trauma defendant at temple, you see that there are cousins and brothers and family members who do get involved. and they're throwing their loved ones in the backs of police cars, and they're covered in blood. we're not, as tim pointed out, we're not encouraging anybody to do that, but often types you hear people say i wish i had known what to do. >> how do you target who is getting the training? >> i think this is a community initiative. they came to scott and to temple university hospital and said we'd like this training. therefore, they're taking the initiative. this is not a top down. this is a grass roots bottom up movement. and so when you say, hey, we'll

come out and do this, and the people arife -- arrive, they're making the decision. to take it one step further, how traumatic is it to have a loved one shot and not know what to do. i think when you ask people in a situation like that, what's most traumatic to them, it was i was standing there and i didn't know what to do. i think that's where this comes from is the fact that so many people have been touched in our community with this type of violence, some four or five times. the stories are unbelievable. and they just didn't know what to do. that's what they want. they want to be empowered with the knowledge that if next time someone gets shot, they feel like at least i knew what to do. >> and this could be the difference between life and death. what are we talking about here? what do you teach? >> actually, very simple and basic steps save lives. what we've done is look at all the literature and

evidence-based steps and looked at what are the top things we need to do, the first safety. and then stopping bleeding. that can be stopped in the field is critical. probably the most important thing is just give a basic understanding of how the system works and that the most important thing to do other than your own safety is to understand that and get the patient appropriately as fast as possible to a trauma team. that doesn't take a lot of knowledge or a lot of training to just understand that, because once you understand that basing principl principle, and if i want to do everything i can do to make them get to the trauma bank, you're going to save lives. there's a subset of patients that will do better and survive. >> what about the risk to the person rendering aide, talking about aids, hepatitis, even injury to themselvess? >> wem, that's a critical aspect of the training. safety is first and foremost. that's always a risk, but i think as scott said, oftentimes this is occurring in a

neighborhood with no training. if we can provide a little bit of instruction, that may make the responder a little bit safer and perhaps supply that may make them safer like body substance isolation so people who make the decision they're going to do something, they know how to do it as safe as possible. >> ultimately the goal is to get the kind of support and funding. again, this is something that's coming on the federal level. and if we have those kinds of materials to put them in strategic places throughout the communities, the places where we know folks are being shot so when something like this occurs that will will be kits readily available with gloves and those types of precautions that will protect them in these as i understand of situations. the thing to keep in mind is we're not talking about individuals having to render care for long periods of time. one of the things this city does really well is transport folks to trauma centers quickly. this is a city unlike most major

cities that allows its law enforcement officers to do scoop and run. so between the paramedics who do an amazing job of transporting folks to the hospital or the officers who get there first and transport them, we're talking about a matter of minutes before the folks arrive on scene. >> you're teamed up with the 25th district. how helpful is that? >> it's amazing. one of the first things we wanted to do is make sure we're not stepping on anyone's toes and make sure everybody is on board with this. i think that one of the things that is kind of an intangible, an unforeseen benefit j r, is the fact that you have the police department supporting this, certainly captain michael cram who is a dynamic individual, that he has a great relationship with that community already. but to see them coming together, to -- he's there when we're doing the training. the last training we did at a fire house in north

philadelphia, and to see law enforcement and fire departments there and see the community stake holders coming out, it's been amazing. and so having their support has been a tremendous benefit. >> can enough people get trained, do you think? you're empowering people with information. there are these people coming out to get training. can it happen fast enough where enough people can make a difference? >> that's the goal. right now we're training emergency room nurses, and what's been amazing about that is the fact that we're trying to have as many training sessions as -- that will meet the demand of the nurses. it wasn't really pulling teeth to get the nurses out. now they're arguing who gets to go to the next one. that's been amazing. between the training of our nurses and the demand in the community, i think we're going to be able to kind of saturate the community with trained up folks so when something like this happens the likelihood that

we're going to have somebody in that situation or on that scene that's been trained is going to be good. >> and it only takes one person to save one life, and then it will be all worth it. >> thank you so much for your time. >> thank you. >> next on nbc 10 at issue, we'll discuss what makes a great leader with former secretary of defense robert gates. find out if you have what it takes.

robert gates served as secretary of defense under george w. bush and barack obama. during his decades of public service he worked under eight different presidents of both parties. he also directed the cia. who better to write a book about leadership? that's what he's done. it's called "a passion for leadership, lessons on change".

we sat down with secretary gates to discuss the book. >> thank you for being here. we're talking about a new book recently released on the topic of leadership. so important. it feels really at this time in our country. i want to get your opinion from where you're sitting, your vantage point, your history about the type of leadership this country needs at this point. >> one of the reasons that i wrote the book, "the passion for leadership, lessons on change and reform from 50 years of public service" is i think some of the presidential candidates have tapped into a deep well of frustration and anger on the part of the american people toward a lot of elected politicians and not getting anything done federal lis, but i think people in this country are

also local, state, and federal level frustrated by organizations that don't meet their needs and are difficult to deal with both in the private sector but especially in the public sector, and having led change and reform at three major institutions, cia, texas a and m university, and the defense department, i wanted to put down what worked for me in terms of how you get the professionals on board, the career people on board, where you form a team and can make enduring change and enduring reform in big bureaucracies and frankly, even at the local level. >> you mentioned the frustration you're sensing among the populous and the electorate. is that a frustration as a result of lack of leadership? >> i think the reason that these organizations don't do what they're supposed to do and

aren't user friendly is a lack of leadership. they can be fixed. and leaders who have the right techniques and have the right approach to it, i think, can make that happen. and it doesn't matter if you're a leader of three people or three million, somebody who has the right talents and the right attitude can make change. >> for our viewers, what are those key criteria that you've seen across the decades as being the signifiers of being a successful leader? >> i think it start with the personality of the leader. they have to have their ego under control. they have to be willing to give credit to other people. has to be willing to hire strong subordinates, empower them and hold them accountable and reward them or get rid of them if they don't do the job. they need to be transparent.

they need to have integrity. to get people to do what you want them to do, even if they don't want to, they have to trust you. >> secretary, you spent time at the highest levels of american government. looking back, obviously the presidential race is the buzz right now meaning we're closing the term of president obama. looking back, based on the leadership outline you've described, how does president obama fair as a leader? >> well, i think the president is strong in the respect that he is decisive. and frankly, it came as a surprise to me as somebody who had never run anything that he embraced making decisions. he liked making decisions. i think the problem is there has been a difficulty in terms of creating a strategy and then implementing that strategy. a good example is the cairo speech in 2009. it was well received in the middle east, but people who were once enthusiastic became bitter

because there was no strategy or policy to back it up, so people felt very disappointed. >> what a new administration is a new defense secretary. from your perspective, what do you see as the most important characteristic that you would want the person sitting in that seat to have? >> i think, first of all, they have to care about the troops and making sure that they have what they need to be able to carry out their mission. i think they have to be independant and honest. he has the give the president his best advice even if the president may not want it. he ought to listen to the military but remember that he's in charge. we have civilian control of the military. so i think having a colleague relationship with the senior military leaders so they will be candid with him or her, and then making independent decisions and then you have to have a good

working relationship with the congress. >> looking back, people always wonder about what it was like to be in there. i wonder as you reflect from where you are now, what was the most difficult decision you made during your time in that post? >> i think that -- well, broadly speaking, the toughest decisions i actually had to make every friday. and that was which units i was going to select to be deployed to iraq and afghanistan. i think the single most difficult decision was one i had to make in january of 2007. i'd only been on the job a month. our troops would have to serve 15 months in iraq and afghanistan instead of a year. we just didn't have enough troops to do the surge and keep the deployments at a year. and it was either cut short their time at home or give them more time in the theater, and that was really hard on the troops and their families. >> that's what i was going to ask. what was the family reaction to you as to the one making the

call at that time? >> i think there was a realization that it was necessary, but there was -- actually, i never had a spouse or a soldier complain directly to me about it. but i knew, nonetheless, that it was very hard on them. >> what are you predicting for the rest of this presidential election cycle? you are someone who, as we've been saying, was there at the top of american politics, working with presidents. what are you expecting to see as this unfolds up to election day? >> well, president obama was the eighth president i worked for. i worked for both democrats and republicans. and i guess i'd answer your question by expressing a hope. and that is that the discussion on the foreign policy and national security challenges that we face be a little bit more sophisticated and a little more realistic. >> "a passion for leadership" is

available at most major bookstores and amazon.com. it turns out being a vegetarian is so yesterday. find out about the new trend in meatless eating that bill clinton swears by and other celebrities. that's next. it's always worth remembering... that icing the cinnamon rolls is a privilege not a right. unleash the power of dough. give it a pop. here in vineland, home of progresso, we love all kinds of chicken soups... but just one kind of chicken. white breast meat chicken every time. so if you're not going to make your own chicken soup tonight, do what we do...make it progresso.

millions of people around the world have switched to a plant-paced diet. they credit it for boosting their wealth. a firefighter who is a leader in the trend wrote a book "engine to diet". it encourages a life without meat, dairy and processed food. he explained the diet to george spencer. >> it seem like being a vegetarian was something that was so common a decade ago. now it seems the idea of a plant-based diet has become more popular. what's the difference for those of us who don't know. >> we like the term a whole food

plan plant-based diet. a vegan diet, a lot of people eating vegan but it's a lot of processed, refined foods. it's vegan ding dongs and oreos. >> people shouldn't see vegan and think it's healthy. >> not at all. and then vegetarians are typically consuming insane amounts of milk, cheese, ice cream, sour cream, all these things that have the same nutritional profile as meat. >> a it connected with restaurants, a lot about locally sourced? >> i would stay away from locally sourced. what we're focusing in on is we're trying to do a deep dive into nutrition. in order to do that, you want to be doing sweet potatoes and brown race and swiss chard and

mustard greens. this is where true nutrition lives in the bodies of these amazing plant strong foods. >> your perspective is get these foods that are as close to how they came out of the earth as you possibly can get them? >> minimally processed, whole foods, exactly right. >> our own fire station, one of them was staring at a heart attack. i said there's a better way. we put him on a whole food plant based today. his cholesterol dropped. >> it can make a big impact base on the what you've seen? >> life saving. >> life change. >> in a short period of time. >> is this something people can stick to. most of us are used to eating meat or poultry products. is it something that modern americans can do over a long period of time? >> absolutely, 100 %. i've been doing this for almost 29 years.

it's drop dead, easy to do. what makes it hard are all the traditions and this culture. >> if we're thinking about real people in the real world, then, rick, what are the most important foods that people should be avoiding? we know what you want them to eat. what do they stay away from? >> you want to stay away from animal products, red meat, chicken, fish, eggs, dairy, milk, sour cream. >> what do you say to people who say it sounds so stringent. what do i eat? >> the other 99% of the foods that come from plants. most americans have no variety in their diet. they rotate their dinners and lunches and breakfasts. there are a ton of plant based recipes? >> keep it as close to what came out of the earth as you possibly can? >> yes. that. and this is going to be a mega

trend. that's the mega trend. this is the direction we have to go in if we want to reverse the can course that this country is going in with our health care crisis and the environmental crisis. >> we'll be following it. thank you. >> thank you. >> "plant strong" offers 150 plant-based recipes. it's available in bookstores and online.

if you're trying to stave off weight gain, a recent study says to add apples, pears, red berries. they concern things linked to better weight maintenance. blueberries, blackberries, tea and pecans can help keep the pounds from piling on. that's it for this edition of nbc 10 @ issue. thank you for joining us.

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