 I'm Dr. Ressa Caivano. I'm one of the members of the sickle cell team here at Kaiser Permanente in the Inglewood office building. Hello, my name is Dr. Rebecca Deans. I'm one of the physicians here at the Inglewood Medical Offices of Kaiser Permanente. According to the Center for Disease Control, sickle cell disease is considered a rare condition as it affects 100,000 people nationwide. With sickle cell disease, you get a bending of the red blood cells. Whereas healthy red blood cells move freely around small blood vessels and deliver oxygen to the organs, sickle cells get stuck in those small blood vessels and can cause repeat episodes known as crises which can lead to damage to organs, infection and potentially even stroke. That's a good question. Well, the majority of the people with sickle cell disease in the United States are of African-American descent. So 90%. That's one in 500 births in the African-American population. We'll have sickle cell disease. However, it doesn't just affect people who are African-American. It affects our Hispanic population. It affects those of Middle Eastern descent that are of Indian descent. Mediterranean. So it's a disease that we all should be aware of because it could affect someone in our family or one of our friends. Sickle cell disease is not a contagious disease. It is a genetically inherited disorder. Both parents have to have the sickle cell gene in order for the child to have sickle cell disease. No, that is not true. That is a myth. What is true is that there are many things that are not opiate-based or narcotic-based that a person can do to help relieve their pain from a sickle cell crisis. They can be as benign as a warm bath, guided meditation, yoga, stretching, massage, acupuncture. So there are lots of things that are not narcotic or opiate-based that the sickle cell patient can use to alleviate their pain. So what makes us unique? Well, we are a center of excellence for sickle cell anemia. We are one of a select few in California and I believe we're the only one or one of a very select group in Southern California that takes care of both pediatric and adult patients with sickle cell anemia. We also have access to infusion therapy or hydration here at our nursing clinic. One of the original heads of the sickle cell team, Dr. Manuel Myers, who has since passed on, that was his legacy and his dream to take care of the sickle cell patients, especially here in Southern California for Kaiser Permanente. The nursing clinic is actually dedicated to him and was the original purpose of that clinic was to provide infusion care or hydration therapy for sickle cell patients. Another important aspect and I think that makes us unique is that we do spend a lot of time focusing on the psychosocial aspect of care for our sickle cell patients. We understand that stress is a major source of sickle cell crises. And so we spend a lot of time as a team talking about ways to decrease those stresses for our patients and helping them with job searches in school and helping to identify potential issues or potential stressors that may send them into crisis and try to head them off before they happen. And then I would lastly like to say that I just think that the fact that Kaiser Permanente is an invested in a population that's traditionally underserved and has allowed us to serve this patient population in the way that we do is just indicative of how much we care about our community and we care about seeing all Southern Californians thrive.