Grant: 0:00

Welcome to The Waterbury Talks, I'm your host Grant Copeland. Today's conversation is with Dr. Steve Schneider. Dr. Schneider is the president of St. Mary's Hospital, an acute care community teaching hospital that has served Waterbury since 1909. Growing up during tumultuous times in Chicago, and beginning his career in emergency medicine for the US Army, Schneider has seen firsthand the horrors of human conflict and the wonders of the human spirit. He's made it his mission to meet people where they are and put his feet on the pavement to better understand the Waterbury community. By doing so, Schneider has helped introduce milestone advancements in local healthcare. Join us for a walk around town, as The Waterbury talks with Dr. Steve Schneider. Well thank you so much for the time today. We really appreciate it, Steve. So let's begin, starting with Saint Mary's hospital. Tell us more about the hospital, its history and its role in the Waterbury community.

Schneider: 0:57

Saint Mary's been here a long time. Over a hundred years. It was founded by an order of nuns, the sisters of Saint Joseph. And, it's been continuously, serving the mission of taking care of our population of peoples since its early days. Very much focused on taking care of the poor, needy, but really the whole entire community. And, as Saint Mary's has grown over the years, it's gotten a lot more sophisticated and we now have, you know, pretty much almost all of the cutting edge kinds of medical interventions that can be done. Open heart surgery, electrophysiology and, of the heart. An angioplasty and procedures like that. So, I mean, we're, we're still kind of at the heart and soul of Saint Mary's hospital, a community hospital dedicated to taking care of this community. And even though we joined Trinity, a large Catholic national health system of 95 hospitals, we, still have our own character that, remains as part of the Saint Mary's community.

Grant: 2:00

As the president of the hospital, what are your main responsibilities?

Schneider: 2:03

My responsibilities are pretty much, everything from beginning to end. I'm, I'm a physician by background. So the clinical care that we give comes more naturally to me, I've got a great team that has expertise in areas that I don't know very much about. all of the engineering things, the biomedical engineering, the food services, housekeeping. All of those things that we have that are absolutely necessary to function together. You know, in many respects, the nurses and doctors literally can't work without the food service people without housekeeping.

and just as an example: 2:39

A few years ago, I came in on a very, very heavily snowy day. and it took, normally takes me 15 minutes to get into work. It took me probably an hour plus, when I got here, I was just rounding on the floors and there was a housekeeper who was cleaning one of the rooms and I looked in and. Just said, you know, thank you so much for coming in today. This is a very tough day to get into work, and it would have been easy for you to say, you know, I'm going to just roll over in bed and call in today, that I can't get out of my driveway or something, but you showed up. And the housekeeper said to me, if I don't clean the germs and the dirt from a room, patients will get sick. So I felt like I had to come in. and it's, it's that kind of spirit that I really love. And that really emphasizes that this is, it really is a community resource. A lot of the people, most of the people that work here live in the community are very close to the community. and their relatives work here. It's a, it's a bit of a family place.

Grant: 3:43

Prior to becoming the president of the hospital. What was your role?

Schneider: 3:46

I've been here nine years all together. I started out as chief medical officer here and serving that role and until three years ago, and I've been in the hospital president's since then.

Grant: 3:56

Now you've also spent part of your career at the city's other hospital, Waterbury Hospital. What were your responsibilities there?

Schneider: 4:02

I was at Waterbury Hospital for 22 years before I came here. And I was, I started out as the, Head of the Psychiatry Department, and became their Chief Medical Officer and served in that role for 17 of the years I was at Waterbury hospital. So I really do know both of the hospitals pretty well inside and out. And a lot of the people at each one.

Grant: 4:23

Despite having been a leader in Waterbury for many years, your story starts far away from here. Where are you from?

Schneider: 4:29

Well, I was born and raised in Chicago. born there, graduated from high school there. My family moved to Nebraska, Omaha, Nebraska during, my senior year of high school. but, there was no way they were going to pull me out of my senior year of high school in Chicago. So I stayed behind, spent a lot of time with friends who opened their homes to me. Well, their parents did, and I'm grateful to them for that to this day, because it allowed me to be with my friends and graduate there. And, but then I did go to Nebraska, to the University of Nebraska and spent basically eight years there, college and medical school. And then, I said farewell to Nebraska, although I do visit it on occasion.

Grant: 5:10

What was it like growing up in the South Side of Chicago in the fifties and sixties?

Schneider: 5:14

I don't remember too much about the fifties because I was a baby then. But, it was a very interesting time when I was a young boy. Chicago was a very polarized, and segregated city. and during my high school age, particularly, Martin Luther King Jr. was a prominent national figure. And he marched through, Chicago several times. And I actually watched some of the marches that he did there. And, I really saw firsthand what the struggles were, because at that point in time, people in Chicago, I think probably from all racial groups, but, I think the, the tension between black and white people was kind of at its peak in the late sixties. And, Martin Luther King had very peaceful marches, nonviolent marches of protest. Very similar to what we are seeing today, except without the coronavirus masks. So you actually saw everybody's face. And I remember seeing neighbors, people, some of them, I actually knew screaming at Martin Luther King and the people marching with him to get out of there and actually throwing bricks and things like that at people. And, it was a very disillusioning thing for me to see. I had, I had no idea. I think I might've been naive, but I had no idea that those capabilities existed in the hearts of neighbors of mine. and it really set my thinking in a very different direction. That's pretty much lasted the rest of my life. Now I see this happening again, and it, and it's kinda sad for me because I thought we had made so much progress and headway. And, now I see people having to take to the streets all over again and, and trying to, protest peacefully in the same way as before. And we're, we're talking now about 60 years ago or 50 years ago. and I, I just hope that we continue to learn and make progress from those experiences, but that's kinda what comes to mind about what it was like growing up in that era. Also the Vietnam War was raging at the time I was terrified of being drafted. the year I was, I think a sophomore in college, maybe sophomore or junior, they eliminated college deferments for the draft. And, it might've even been earlier than that. And it became a lottery and there was a national lottery. And we all watch TV, eagerly, my friends and I to see what number we would come out with. Cause you got a lottery number that was, determined by your birthdate. And so they're going down the list, and it was number one to number three 65. Number one you were for sure being drafted. Number 365, you are almost for sure not being drafted. And I wound up getting a number that was pretty high. It was like 280. So I, I felt a little relief from that, but nonetheless, it was a pretty scary time. and I felt a lot of comradery with, college students who were kind of wondering why we were there. and they were wondering it very loudly and, very upset probably within retrospect, very good reason. ironically, I wound up in the army later when I went to medical school. I ran out of money to pay tuition to medical school at that time because the Vietnam war was just tailing down. there were very few sources to get funding, to go to medical school. The Peace Corps was oversubscribed and they were paying people to go to medical school. And then you served in an underserved area. so out of desperation, I went to the office where the financing occurred at the medical school and they said, you know, pretty much the only thing we can come up with is, the army is paying for people, to pay their tuition to medical school. And they'll even give you a monthly stipend to live on, and then you will owe them time back after you graduated from medical school. and so ironically, I wound up in the army. That also turned out to be a wonderful experience. So, I mean, it was interesting. I did not go into combat, so that was good. I experienced a fair amount of training for it. I did an emergency medicine residency in the army, after I graduated from medical school up in Washington state, what was then called Fort Lewis, and Madigan Army Medical Center. And, so people who were trained in emergency medicine. Were trained to do kind of field medicine, because they were going to put you up closer to where the front lines were in any combat that might occur. So we got to do some camping and things like that, and, sleep out in tents a little bit, but mostly I worked in the hospital.

Grant: 10:03

Tell me about your parents.

Schneider: 10:04

I don't even remember how they met, but my mother grew up in Chicago. My father grew up in New York City and they somewhere met and wound up, of course, living in Chicago.'Cause that's where my mother was from. my mother was, at, at that. Era, most of the mothers stayed at home didn't work. And my mother was typical of that. In fact, she didn't learn to drive a car until I was probably in my twenties. I actually drove a car before she did. And, which was a little bit inconvenient for me. So I was very happy when she finally got her license. my father was a furniture salesman. And he did that for his entire career until he retired. He lived to be 90. So, there's some good longevity genes there. And my mother lived to be 78. and that was despite the fact that she smoked three packs of cigarettes a day. So I think she, even, she at 78 kind of fooled the, predictors.

Grant: 11:00

Do you have any siblings?

Schneider: 11:01

I have two sisters, an older sister and a younger sister.

Grant: 11:05

And where are they doing?

Schneider: 11:06

my older sister is retired and she actually lives in Nebraska. She moved out there with my parents and, has stayed there ever since she's now retired. And my younger sister, which is interesting, is also retired. and she and her husband now live in Florida outside of Orlando.

Grant: 11:24

What were your interests in high school? I think football is something that I I've heard about you.

Schneider: 11:29

Football was my big passion in high school. So that was, you know, my friends that I was friends with on the football team were mostly the guys that I spent time with afterschool when it wasn't football season, we were playing basketball all the time. Believe it or not. At one point in time, I was actually somewhat fleet of foot and, I was not tall. In fact, still not. so I was mostly a guard, but I could move around a lot and could move the ball around. So we played a ton of basketball, pretty much, anytime we weren't in football season or having football practice, we did that in football. I played, primarily linebacker. I played some offensive guard, but mostly a linebacker. Those guys are still friends of mine today, although there's a couple less of them than there used to be. but, I still am in touch with them. The last time I saw them now was probably two or three years ago. But we're in contact and those people became lifelong friends and most of them actually stayed in the Chicago area except for one or two, and live now somewhere in the outskirts of Chicago.

Grant: 12:37

With your parents' move from Chicago to Omaha. Was it a foregone conclusion? You were going to go to Lincoln and the university of Nebraska.

Schneider: 12:44

It wasn't a foregone conclusion. but it was, it was pretty much, it was yeah. More, I guess I would say more or less. Yes. And at first it was, that was very tough for me the first day. I mean, I was a Chicago guy we lived right in the city. And I got to Omaha, Nebraska, which sounded to me like something from a old Western TV show. Just the name of the city. It turns out Omaha is actually a very nice place. I spent eight years there. It was great. but I got there on day one. my father picked me up from the train when I went out there and we're driving along, down the main street in Omaha, which was named Dodge Street. And all I could think of was like Dodge City from Gunsmoke, you know? And I'm thinking, "Oh my God, like, where are we?" Believe it or not there was a car in front of us, this is true story. That had a bumper sticker on it as we're driving along. And I'm thinking, "where are we, how did we wind up here from Chicago?" The bumper stickers said welcome to Omaha where no, it said Welcome to Nebraska, Where the West begins and the World Ends. And I was just like heartbroken that here I am, you know, trapped in this godforsaken cowboy country, after growing up on the city streets in Chicago. But, you know, I grew to really like Omaha and I had a very good experience there. And Lincoln too, Lincoln was for undergraduate. The medical school was in Omaha, but Nebraska football became almost like a religion.

Grant: 14:11

Yeah. I've heard that Lincoln becomes the, the largest or second largest city in Nebraska on Saturday afternoon.

Schneider: 14:17

It does... second largest city in Nebraska. Yes. It's unbelievable to be in there. these days, not as much because their, their fates have kind of faltered over the last 10 years or so, but for a long time, it was a great deal of fun to be in Nebraska Cornhusker fan. I was always a little embarrassed by the, Herbie Husker mascot, but it was still pretty cool.

Grant: 14:40

So after graduating the University of Nebraska, both premed and your doctorate, you begin your medical career in the military. When do you leave the military? And what's the thought behind that?

Schneider: 14:49

I was there while I paid my time back. You know, I served as a, actually it was interesting because emergency medicine was a brand new specialty then. And I had never, I wasn't sure that was what I wanted to do, but, cause I was kind of interested in psychiatry, but also the kind of psychiatry I was interested in, you know, I right at the end of the Vietnam war and and particularly in the military, it was very skewed towards one specific kind of psychiatry that they were dealing with and, and they needed to, it was out of necessity. But I decided that I want to get a good medical background. Anyway, if I'm going to become a psychiatrist, because most psychiatrists don't really delve into regular physical medicine a lot. So I did the emergency medicine residency and, Right out of that, they sent me to Fort Benning, Georgia. and, immediately I was the only person I think I was 27 or 28 years old as the only one there who had actually trained in emergency medicine. Everybody else was somebody who'd done, you know, like medical school and one year of something. And then they either got a job from the public health service working in the ER there, or a couple of them were people that halfway through surgery, residency decided they didn't want to be a surgeon after all. So they were partly trained and they were assigned to the emergency department to serve their time in the army. I was the only one with a residency in emergency medicine. So right out of residency, they made me the Chief of Emergency Medicine. And it turned out to be a really great experience for me. When I was saying earlier, the army was a great experience. I learned a tremendous amount. I was actually in charge of an emergency department, close to the size of the one we have here. And, and I had no, I was literally a brand new practitioner, so it was a little bit terrifying. But, I learned over two or three years there that you can really, as a part of management, effect change in a, in a way that you can't do just by being an individual practitioner. So I really reorganize the emergency department in many ways and it was, I mean, it was a much better place when I left and where I started. There's a lot of detail behind that. but suffice it to say it, it was operating like a 1940's emergency room. And this was back in the late seventies, early eighties. So it was really very rewarding to do that. And, and I learned a lot too.

Grant: 17:20

So let's chart the path here, Illinois, Nebraska, Washington, Georgia. How the heck do you get to Connecticut?

Schneider: 17:27

Well, I got to Connecticut because I decided I am going to go do a psychiatry residency now and people thought it was kind of crazy going and doing another whole residency again. But, it was something that I really wanted to do. and so I applied to a variety of places and one of them was Yale. So I got into the Yale program and that's literally what brought me to Connecticut. So where do you meet your wife? While I was a resident in psychiatry at Yale, she was finishing up, her doctoral. And then, got a research, was part of a research grant there. So she was, she and I were at Yale at the same time. And that's where we met. And actually our meeting place, cause, both of us had to spend a little bit of time at the West Haven VA, which is affiliated with Yale. And, we met in the cafeteria of the West Haven VA, not one of the more romantic spots, but it was, you know, we still both remember that fondly. The food was God awful and the environment wasn't all that great. But man, I saw her and "I said that I don't think I'm ever going to see anybody like that in the VA hospital again." 35 years later, I still feel that way.

Grant: 18:34

So you eventually wind up in Waterbury. And let's talk about the state of healthcare in Waterbury. Waterbury is unique because you have two hospitals in the same city. What's the relationship - if I were to call it that - between Saint Mary's Hospital and Waterbury Health?

Schneider: 18:48

It is simultaneous collaborative and competitive. I mean, we do help each other out in a pinch if, one of us has a service that's swamped and the other one has some capacity there we'll take transfers back and forth. if something happens to a surgical tray that an orthopedic surgeon needs, let's say it drops or something's missing or broken, and we don't have another one, because other ones in use in a different room. We can call over there and they, or they can call over here and we will exchange things. We will help each other at the same time we're competitors. and mostly it's a good, healthy competition where, if both of us want to strive to be the best or get patients to come here rather than there, most of the time that is better for the community, because you know, it. Causes us to be better. We worked very collaboratively to get open heart surgery and angioplasty in the city. we, we worked very hard on several other projects, including building the Harold Leever Cancer Center that we still co-own. So I would say it's been a, kind of a spirited collaboration and competition simultaneously.

Grant: 19:58

You both seem actively involved in a collaboration called the Greater Waterbury Health Partnership. Tell me about that partnership.

Schneider: 20:05

That's a very interesting partnership in that that has been around about 10 years. but I only became aware of it maybe two years ago. And at that time, it really didn't have a formal organizational structure or leadership. It was essentially, a group of, community providers along with the two hospitals that got together and wanted to start, addressing public health needs in the greater Waterbury area. finally about two years ago, when I first became aware of it, maybe two and a half now, we were in the process of saying, you know, we, we really need to have formal structure in order for this to be successful and have a true impact on the community. And so we, wound up hiring Angie Mathis as a part, as the leader for that collaboration. And we now have multiple community providers, small and medium size community providers of various health services. We have the city's health department as part of it. The United Way is a part of it, the Connecticut Community Foundation. And we all kind of sit co-equally look doing community health assessment needs on a regular basis, and then developing and designing programs and interventions that are geared towards what are the main health issues in Waterbury. And so it's actually been a very good thing and it really has developed into something, with some structure and, Kind of clout behind it, where I think it's going to really have a growing impact on the city. During the COVID crisis. Saint Mary's even partnered with the City of Waterbury. Tell me about the COVID testing partnership? Well, the entire partnership, with Waterbury during the crisis was really phenomenal. Adam Ranko did an amazing job as, as, mayor's head of emergency preparedness. Mayor O'Leary himself provided a lot of leadership and really brought the hospitals together on a common mission, which was to get testing open as quickly as possible to get us resources, that we needed. It's pretty widely known throughout the United States that, protective equipment masks, gowns, and all those things were in very short supply. during that early time, particularly, and the city was extremely helpful in getting us some very needed supplies and equipment and doing planning and things like that, helping us get testing organized.

Grant: 22:30

Are there other programs and partnerships happening between the healthcare institutions and the schools in Waterbury?

Schneider: 22:35

we're very involved in the schools. we've had for many years, high school students come in as, kind of like, not exactly interns because they're not quite ready for that, but to do a lot of shadowing and to get their hands involved in healthcare. And, and a real desire is to get them interested in healthcare careers. So the two hospitals in Waterbury are the two biggest employers other than the city of Waterbury itself. And so I think we want to have the Waterbury population coming here and working afterwards. there's nobody, that's going to be more dedicated to the kind of care we give to the city than people who live in the city and receive that care of themselves and their family members. And I think at both hospitals, there is a legacy of, of that, of, of real family, community involvement and, an awful lot of our employees live right here in this city, along with multi-generations of family as well. So having students here from the high schools is very exciting. in addition to that, and now that Waterbury UCONN branch has opened up a new, bachelor's degree program in allied health care. I'm very excited that a nice pathway could be carved for Waterbury kids that graduate from high school here to go there, and get their degree, and then work here as part of our workforce.

Grant: 23:59

It's a big question, but how would you describe the quality of health care in the Waterbury region?

Schneider: 24:04

That is a big question. You know, I think the quality of healthcare is very good here. I mean, we do benefit a lot from our proximity to Yale and to, and the university of Connecticut. And we get, and now Quinnipiac is a third partner. so in a fairly small state, we have three good medical schools and a lot of our medical staff and a lot of our nurses and PA's and APRN's. All come from the local medical educational communities. And I think they bring high quality to us. and so I, you know, my family and I have always gotten our care here and, I would highly recommend that to anybody. I think with very few exceptions, if you need an organ transplant, things like that for some very advanced kind of cancers, then may be a need to go out of town. But, from, for everything, from a hip replacement, to a broken ankle, to a heart attack or, or needing open heart surgery, I believe that you're served as well here as you are in any community in this state.

Grant: 25:10

One major thing that you spearheaded for Saint Mary's was establishing five urgent care centers throughout the Waterbury region. How has that expanded access for the people in this area?

Schneider: 25:21

I think it's been a huge benefit. It has, hours that, go from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM. You can go there. It opens at seven for blood tests and x-rays so if your private doctor orders a blood test, you have five additional sites that you can go to. So, and our goal was to be. To kind of move the hospital out into the community rather than have the community always have to come to us. That was the whole theory behind the development of the urgent care centers. And so people on their way to work and stop and get their blood tests done. They can get a chest X-Ray if it's needed. But, it also means for minor illnesses or uh injuries that may be need suture suturing, but are not, something where you're going to have to go to the operating room. That all of that can be done in an urgent care center without having to wait in an emergency department, you know, that is filled with people that are sick and sometimes there's longer weights, in emergency department. The urgent care is have quick turnaround service and, they can deal with a lot of kinds of things that would be surprising. What are some of the other healthcare innovations that st Mary's has brought to the Waterbury region recently? I think of things like the new MS center as an example. You know that the ms center is an outgrowth of our participation in Trinity Health of New England. So they have a, I think what is a nationally known program. The Mandell MS Center, treating people with multiple sclerosis with, essentially it's a one stop shopping. People with multiple sclerosis have mobility issues and challenges to begin with. and so having to go to five different places to get physical therapy, to get chemotherapy type infusions, to see their neurologist, to see a neuropsychologist and others, we brought all of that under one roof and they started that at Saint Francis a number of years ago. We now opened a second branch of that Mandell Center here. Where people get everything that they need for their treatment in one place. And that's really been wonderful and they're going to be opening up, a third site up in Springfield, Massachusetts soon. So it's something that we're very proud of. It's again, it's national and even world-class, care. And in fact, They, they in England, Oxford University has expressed interest in collaborating with Dr. Bob Cru who's the head of the MS center for both, parts of the, our region. And, he's working with them now to facilitate opening up one of those clinics there. So it's really very good care. We've done things like 3-D printing, of. It's combined cat scan and the 3-D printing that allows the surgeon to actually have a physical model of the organs of the body for their patient before they go into the operating room. And so for very complicated surgeries or surgeries with very small tumors where it's important to know about blood vessel supply and things like that, a 3D cat scan image. What it does is it takes the image from a cat scan. And then it con it translates it to a three D printer and literally we'll make an identical image of the organ that you're going to operate on. And it, it has really enabled surgeons to do things they wouldn't have been able to do before, because they can see such fine detail before they've ever even taken the patient to the operating room. And they can really play on their approach. It's literally like they've been there before.

Grant: 28:47

So what's your view on how and why Saint Mary's gives back to the community?

Schneider: 28:53

Well, I think we give back to the community in a lot of ways, but it really is a two-way street. you know, we, we do a lot of donating to other not-for-profits. obviously we are, I think a safety net health care, center for the poor. We were located physically, you know, near the down, you know, kind of right on the downtown area. And a lot of people can actually walk to us to get their care. and it's very convenient for some, and I think we like being in the middle of, I know I like being in the middle of the city and you can go out and walk around and see what's happening downtown. And it's kind of exciting to see. Some of the redevelopment coming back downtown too. So I feel like we're a part of that. but I'll tell you what the community has, served us equally during the COVID pandemic. I can't even count or tell you how many people came by, you know, groups of people, sometimes individuals, but a lot of groups of people coming around, singing outside of the hospital, doing prayers for us, the , amount of food and other kind of goodies like that, that were brought to us by just a ton of different community, providers, resources, vendors, phenomenal. And, it really buoyed up the spirits of the people that were working here during the hardest, part of the time and, and it, but it really did kind of... it really cemented that idea that it's not the community and Saint Mary's, it's Saint Mary's is a part of the community. Truly.

Grant: 30:23

If I were to ask your colleagues to summarize your style, what do you think they would say?

Schneider: 30:28

That depends if I'm in the room or not? No. I. I try to listen carefully to everybody. And I do very much believe in the philosophy that, the best leader is one, where the focus is not on the leader. It's, it's on the team that they have assembled and on the people doing the work. so I, I would hope that they would see me as that kind of a leader, that I'm a listener. I'm somebody who, will really empower the people that work for me. And I want people around me to know things and to be smarter than I am about a lot of things, because I can't know everything. so I, I believe in letting them have as much independence as possible to do their craft every day. If I have to make a decision, that's a very tough decision and it has to be done quickly. I will do that. I can do that. but mostly I try to do it by collaboration and getting as much input as possible. I think they would say that. I would be happy if they did. I would be a little disappointed if they didn't, if they had a different view.

Grant: 31:30

Does that align with, call it, your life philosophy?

Schneider: 31:34

Very much so. Yes. I think I, I think it was Gandhi, but it might've been somebody else too. but who basically said the best leader is one where people are successful and happy and nobody actually remembers who the leader was. And I, I believe in that. Pretty deeply.

Grant: 31:54

So let's talk a little bit more about your heroes. Gandhi is one of them?

Schneider: 31:58

He is.

Grant: 31:59

And others?

Schneider: 31:59

well, I, you know, I purposely kind of have two different, ends of the spectrum of people as heroes. Gandhi, I admire tremendously because he was exactly what I was just talking about. He was a humble self-sacrificing man who brought unimaginable change to an entire continent without ever lifting a finger, in conflict or arms and without ever raising an army. by being an inspiration to the people. And, he was about as humble as you could possibly be in making change that very few other power oriented leaders have ever made and no violence involved at all, except that which was maybe perpetrated onto him, against him, but no violence in his approach at all. on the other hand, there's Jimmy Brown. who has, is one of my lifetime heroes. Number one, he was the best running back that's ever played. The game is way before a lot of people's time now. But, Jimmy Brown, I believe to this day is the only running back who's still averaged more than five yards per carry for his entire career. Nobody's come close to that. he was a man who has flaws, but he was an, a man who was known physically as, a brutal competitor that if you were going to try to tackle Jimmy Brown, it was going to hurt you. And I don't think he deliberately tried to hurt people, but he was so powerful and explosive. And he did not hold back that if you're going to bring him down, you are going to feel a great deal of pain. on the other hand, he has been completely true to his own philosophies, his own life. Very much like Muhammad Ali, who was a, again, a star in a brutal sport, but who stayed true to his beliefs throughout his entire life, including giving up his title and riches and all of that. and, and actually go into jail. And not being able to do his sport for five years during which time he could have made millions and millions tens of millions of dollars. but he was true to what he, his vision of himself in the world was. And I think that is exactly the same kind of courage that Gandhi had expressed in a very different way. But the idea of kind of, knowing who you are. And being true to that throughout your life to me is like the highest goal that I can imagine. I actually have a favorite saying from a well known philosopher named Clint Eastwood, in dirty Harry, one of the very favorite lines of all time to me that I quote pretty frequently, is, the line when he says:" A man's got to know his own limitations." And I, and I think that tells you a lot about how I think about things. The more you know who you are, what you are, what you stand for - and if you're true to that your whole life - then you've probably lived a pretty good life. And it's very challenging to always live by that cause it sounds simple. But when you really think about all the situations life throws at you, there are many opportunities to not be who you are, not be true to yourself. And, and so those are the people that I really look to. You've also mentioned, Deepak Chopra as a very influential person. Did you see Chopra when he came to the Palace Theater recently? I did not. I missed that, but, he's a brilliant guy who, who thinks deeply about things. He's a physician by training, and I've actually seen in, in, recordings of, and I have a, DVD, which at the time I got, it was very cutting edge. Now I can't even find a player to play the thing on, but it was of a lecture that he gave to Harvard medical students. Cause he's a, he was an endocrinologist at Harvard. and he has a view of existence. That is a, kind of a foundational view that I really, admire and believe in greatly, Which is kind of, it's kind of the mysticism of existence. I'm oversimplifying it, but, you know, essentially I could sum it up by, you know, what he would say is that, and this is going to sound a little bit wacky. But, we are all made up of atoms. We're all made up of, we don't even know what atoms really are. We talk about atoms but you and I, and, and, the floor that were, and the chair that we're seated on are all made up of atoms. And all of those atoms are made up of the same thing. Every single atom that everything in the universe is made out of is made up of the same thing, or at least the universe, as we know it. Protons and electrons, which are little, somethings, they're little particles or little energy beams, but they're literally all the same. And the reason that we see the reality that we see is because our brains and our eyes were evolved to interpret those signals that we get in, in an organized way. So that we see, I see you sitting, talking to me, with, with a suit jacket on and their shirt. if I, if my eyes had the power of an electron microscope and I couldn't focus it out much further than that, so I could actually see the atoms. Then you wouldn't look like this. You would look like, Oh, the chair, you would look like the floor, the air in you would be a bunch of atoms that happened to be all bunched together. And, and he feels a sense of awe and mystery about what is this all mean? And it's, it's one way of looking for God or spirituality is to try to understand what those forces are that make us, but also tell us that perception is not always an absolute thing. Perception in part is determined by the viewer of the thing so that, if I'm speaking into a microphone, you can take the receiver from a microphone and change it with a synthesizer and make my voice completely different. So my voice is not an absolute thing. My voice is something that creates sound waves that vibrate somebody's eardrums. And if you put a third thing in the, in, in the pathway between the air coming out of my lungs, vibrating my vocal chords and the eardrums of the listener. If there's something interposed there that changes that vibration, then my voice is perceived differently. And there's a lot of lessons for that, that I, you know, it'll take me two hours, which I won't do, to go into that. But there's a lot of implications from that about how you understand reality.

Grant: 38:45

So let's switch gears. There's a lot of things that Waterbury has going for it. Favorite places to eat in Waterbury?

Schneider: 38:52

I have a few favorites, but, I would have to say right now, it's a very tight race between, d'Amelio's, which is fantastic. And the people that run D'Amelio's and own it and operate it have been just very generous to this hospital as well. Particularly so during the COVID pandemic, where they fed essentially every employee of our hospital for a day, and their food is fantastic. Brass City Bistro, which is right down the street from us is a wonderful place. and, of course Diorio's, which I can walk to, and I appreciate that. We have just, a lot of wonderful places. We have some fantastic bakeries in town. And as you can tell, I do not stay away from or frown on bakeries. so, you know, Sweet Maria's and places like that are just heavenly.

Grant: 39:41

Favorite things to do in the Waterbury area?

Schneider: 39:43

Well, my very favorite thing is being here at Saint Mary's hospital. I have to say, I love it here. I love the people here. But beyond that, the Palace Theater is just an absolute gem for this city. And what's really wonderful about that is my wife can come down, you know, when I'm done with work and park here, and then we can literally walk to the Palace Theater. and there's a great restaurant in a variety of directions that are very close. So you can have dinner, go to a show and, you know, be home by 10:30. And I can just walk there from, from the hospital. So that, that is really one of my favorite aspects of this city. And it's a wonderful city just to walk around the old architecture here is just phenomenal. The churches that we have here. There are times when I'm walking, just down around the green, which was just redone a few years ago. And it's just beautiful. And you look at the clock tower coming from the building that the Waterbury Republican is in. You look at the churches to your right and left, and it almost feels like you're in an Italian city or something like it's wonderful, the architecture and what we have here.

Grant: 40:52

You've mentioned a couple of times now walking around the neighborhoods. What is it that's so special or memorable, or what are you investigating in, in those walking experiences?

Schneider: 41:02

well, for one thing at this stage of the game, I don't run anymore. So I'm just, I'm stuck with where I used to run a lot. but now I just walk because my knees have said, we've carried you around enough that you've given us, you know, more to carry around in the last few years. And so now it's time, we're just going to walk. And when I walk, I really like seeing what the community is that we serve. I mean, I, I, there are so many different kinds of communities here and they're all very interesting. and, and it's a very safe, feeling to me, to walk around. I've not gone anywhere that I have not felt safe. but you can see very different neighborhoods with different, you know, ethnic backgrounds, the, and, and you see intermixed, in unexpected places, you know, just very interesting old architecture right next to a new building. and homes that have been around for a long time, some of whom are some of which are very well cared for others, not as much. And so there's a lot of opportunity for redevelopment, but I also feel like as, as part of Saint Mary's Hospital, it's, I really need to understand the neighborhoods in the community that we serve in order to really best serve the community. You really have to know. What were the city's pulses are to, to really be a good, kind of servant for the city and it's, and it's just, there's always different places to go. There's hills to challenge you. There's thank God there's downhills that let you rest up from that. but every direction you go, there's very different kinds of people. And the diversity of the people make it makes it very interesting.

Grant: 42:44

Let's talk about the vast diversity that is noted here in Waterbury. It's an interesting question to analyze a bit more. Why is diversity important for people who are in this community or looking at this community?

Schneider: 42:58

Diversity is important I think because it's what makes life interesting. If everything were all, you know, blend one color in one culture, I think that gets dull after a while. But we've got people that have come here from radically different cultures, and different religions and different races and, and they, they all bring different kinds of perspectives on the world. To whatever they're doing. So when they're coming here for healthcare, they have very different needs. So the ultra Orthodox Jewish community has a very different set of needs. you know, then people that are, that came here, after the big hurricanes in Puerto Rico and immigrated here to be with family that were here. we have a very strong Albanian community and many of those people work here. and, They're just a delight to be around very hardworking and really want to be contributors to the community, but they all see the world a little differently. They have different kinds of food, likes and dislikes, things like that. And you just learn more about what the world is like by being around so many different people. I mean, one of the really cool things about Saint Mary's is that you can... be it walking around, doing rounds on an inpatient unit... and in one room is a guy who's the president of a bank. And in the next room is somebody who lives under a bridge, you know, not very far away from here. fortunately our population of, of homeless people are -now we call it non-domiciled people, but, that is not a huge population, but there's still plenty of people suffering in that way. but we, we get to know all different kinds of people and they all bring different life perspectives, to us.

Grant: 44:47

So what do you see happening in the Waterbury region overall? Is it making strides?

Schneider: 44:52

It is. It is making strides. It's been a slow process, I think, but I'm seeing more signs of, of, increase in the pace of change. And I think that's really important. I think what Waterbury needs more than anything else is it's kind of the way I think about it. It's like very fertile soil and there are seeds here that will grow and sprout with a little bit of fertilizer and the fertilizer that's needed is more jobs and diverse kinds of jobs and interesting jobs. And, and I think with, with that coming into the city, first of all, there's a workforce that is very eager. The people that work here, I mean, I can't even tell you how many people we have here that started out, literally working as, you know, in housekeeping, because they didn't have the education to go further than that. And, and finally, after a few years wound up, you know, doing well enough that they could pay for themselves to go to a school. To get to be, a patient care associate, a nurses aid. And then get their two year degree from the Naugatuck Valley Community College to become a registered nurse. And then with help from us, they get their bachelor's degree. And we've got a number of people who literally had that trajectory that, you know, that, started out in that way and, and are still here now as senior experienced nurses. And, and I just love seeing that happen. And I think that spirit is here in Waterbury. it's a proud city, actually in many respects, the culture of it, there is more pride in Waterbury than in many other cities. I think pride of the city by the people who live in it, than you can see in some wealthier towns in Connecticut. and so I could tell you probably right off the top of my head, 15 different stories that I know. And I've only been here at Saint Mary's nine years, of people who started out with cashier down in the, in the cafeteria. And gradually over time, worked their way now have a MBA and are part of our management team. People like that, that, if we had more jobs coming into the community. And because I think we're a lower cost environment, I hope that and think there's good reason to think that will happen. We're already seeing some of it that the workforce is here and eager and ready to go. The educational system is in place to get them where they need to go. Because again, if you're coming from a very difficult background, and again, I didn't come from wealth myself, and I had to scrap together ways to finally ending up in the army to pay my way through medical school. Otherwise I wouldn't be here today. but if, you know, if we can help people with jobs, that start out at entry level and there's enough educational resources now that they can get locally the education they need to really advance. And the desire is there. You can see it in the eyes of the high school kids that come through and do work. They really want to do something that, will make their life meaningful.

Grant: 47:55

Would you say that healthcare is a pillar here in Waterbury that can spur economic growth?

Schneider: 48:00

It is. I mean, there's a limit to how much we can do that, but we absolutely are an integral part of it, for sure. I really believe that. I mean, again, the two hospitals are the two largest employers other than the city itself and quite honestly, I would love to see the day come when we're not the two largest employers. Not because we've gotten smaller, but because other industry comes in and outpaces us. I think that would be a home run for this city. And quite honestly, I think that the city, would offer a lot of benefits to companies like that because you've got a hungry workforce here that is willing to work.

Grant: 48:37

So put a bow on all this. If I were a prospective investor, I'm looking to bring a company and obviously that's bringing jobs and other families and other lives to the Waterbury region. What is that succinct pitch to me?

Schneider: 48:51

I think what I would say is if you're looking for a place where you can get in and build where it's not going to be terribly expensive, where expense is not prohibitive, and you want to be in a place that's growing, that's, that's ambitious, that's hungry to develop. That has a true sense of community and spirit - that you're not going to find a better place than Waterbury.

Grant: 49:15

That's great, Doctor Schneider, thank you so much for the time.

Schneider: 49:18

You're welcome.

Grant: 49:19

Listen to the full series from The Waterbury Talks, and learn more about St. Mary's Hospital, Waterbury's healthcare excellence, and all the city offers, at thewaterbury.com