This episode features Dr. Michael Knight , an Internal Medicine and Obesity Medicine specialist. He shares his pathway to medicine which started at an HBCU (Oakwood University). Dr. Knight talks about how he became interested in obesity medicine and the niche of Patient Safety. Dr. Knight completed a fellowship at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program (which is now the National Clinician Scholars Program). This allowed Dr. Knight to add an additional aspect to his career and led to his initial role as a patient safety officer.
In addition to his clinical work, Dr. Knight gives back to his community. In residency, he started a non-profit organization “The Renewing Health Foundation “, which empowers communities to live their best lives. Throughout his medical career, Dr. Knight has been incredibly active in the Student National Medical Association and now the National Medical Association . He talks about the benefits of these organizations. (After our conversation, I finally became a member of the NMA).
If you or someone you know is interested in the field of Patient Safety, or becomin an Internest or Obesity medicine specialist, please listen to and share this episode. If you receive value from the show, please share, subscribe and leave a comment.
TBDP is a volunteer passion project with the goal of inspiring all who listen. In-house music and audio production, so any ideas for improvements or suggestions for future guests are welcome. Visit www.StevenBradleyMD.com to learn more about our host. He is available for consultations or speaking engagements regarding health equity and medical ethics.
Transcription:
The Black Actors Podcast, I like the stories of minority professionals with the goal of inspiring others. You like me here to subscribe and share, met them Ca. The next generation can be, if you don’t see in every Monday, to hear our stories hell on welcome back to the black doctors podcast this week I am so tied to be speaking with Dr Michael Night, he’s quite the impressive individual in position. He currently practices Washington DC, he’s an internal medicine position with special ize, craning and now BC. Medicine he’s here to talk about his amazing career, thus far, Dr Ni think you so much begonine this o the show thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here yeah, so I was looking over your resume and the list of impressive entitate top trained to study that I figure. We start the beginning, talk about Okwari y and the role that that played and setting you up for your career. Thank you. So Much Yeah Oakland University is near and get of my heart and really had a foundational role in my career development. So I’m originally from New York City to live in the Bronx and low Westchester County and went to high school had endevoring interest in science. I initially wanted to be a scientist, but my decisions sifted after spending some time, volunteering at a nursing home and interacting with patients, really developed a desire to impact the live individuals with regard to their health, and so I was looking for a program to do. Pre Medical Studies- and it took me down to Oakland University Alco university is a historically black college and university. So H, BC really provided a very, very enriching and welcoming experience as a student who was interested in in science but didn’t necessarily come from a high school that had all of the best resources. It really prepared me for the real world and not in a place that I felt that I was being a leaded out with that. I was a part of of a rat race. If you will, it was a opportunity to think about what are my goals. What are my challenges? What are my opportunities and having faculty and staff that would invest in me as a person? Almost like family- and I think that foundation was just so critical in my development and in my future, when I went on to medical school. What was your Undergrad degree in him? I undergraduate degree with in bion medical sciences, and I also have had a minor in music, so I actually was involved in a vocal performance it to bocal lesson by performed in our concert, choir and traveled around the United States, anything internationally, which was a great addition right. We always want to think about what other interests we have been outside of medicine and so after completing that course of study. I went on to medical school nice and and were do o for medical school to. I was in Cleveland, Ohio at the Cleveland Clinic Learner College of Medicine of Case Western River Ter University, and that is a five year program with one year of required research that either happens between the second and third year or between the third and fourth year, and so I was one of the reasons why I was recruited to go. There was because of my interest in scientific research as an undergraduate at over university. During my summers, I spent time at the male clinic doing pancreatic cancer research and that really developed an interest in me to do translational or clinical research, and I wanted to go to a medical school that was going to foster that. So, while I didn’t decide to go into an MDTHER, I did still want an opportunity to develop my research, a career and research knowledge base and the Cleveland Clinic learn a college of Medicine, provided that, for me, are all their students doing five year programs or was that special know all of the students. So it is a substant of the case, Western Reserve University School of Medicine, if you will, and so a small class five, they accepted about thirty two of US every year, and we all did that extra year research. So I actually did my extra year between my third and fourth year and I came down to the DC area at the National Institutes of Health, where I did research on obesity and Enslin Resistance, an African American women. That’s a very impressive, very incredible! I honestly didn’t know that the program existed, so I’m sure our listeners, you know happy to find out these different options and pursuing the medical education. Definitely, and I will also add that all of the students are on full tuition polishes. So that’s another reason ease we’ve been clinic in mind as you’re looking for options for medical school. Yes, that is a a very key, very important. Obviously, if you’re interested in research like like you are, that is a very that very nice program. It sounds like so so come out of Cleveland Clinic. You went on to so you’re from New York. You went back to New York for your residency program in turnal medicine. How is your time at New York, Presbyterian Yeah? So I remember match day I ranked Wild Cornell Medical Center number one for internal medicine, and I remember my parents blew out sick Le lent for match day and I was so excited to be going home to New York City, because you know I really felt that my community in New York invested. So much in me when I look back to individuals who I grew up with, where I went to school with, who were not able to achieve their ultimate goals, have an ability to go on to medical school and become a medical doctor was really exceptional coming out of my community, and so I thought why not have an opportunity to go back to your city and train and also become involved in the community, which will talk about a little bit later. So I matched and I moved back to New York City on the up reast side of Manhattan and I spent three years training in internal medicine, with a focus on obesity, medicine. I started to develop an interest in BC medicine as in medical students, not only with my research, but also it’s some elected time, and so when I went to Cornell, I realized that they had a very large medical weight, managin program which well I was able to work with, in addition to training and learning the tenants of internal menace so that in medical school, when you chose what specialty you would be applying into what did you envision your future career? Looking like yeah? So it’s so interesting when I first got to medical school, I had an interest in transplant surgery, so I even you know published papers first auto papers as a medical student in a transplant journal. I was ready going to amon surgery and a, but until as many of you know, you really don’t know what it’s like to be in a specialty until you’re actually doing it right and so during. My third year is when I was able to really see that medicine really fit more with my personal goals and the way that I wanted to practice, medicine and the the way I wanted to be involved in patients care, and so that’s when I shifted to internal medicine. Also, when I realized that I wanted to do more than just clinical medicine, I started to develop interest in organizational leadership as a medical student, I was heavily involved in the student National Medical Association, which I’m sure will talk about. So I started to develop that leadership. Bug and I said you know: Internal Medicine is such a adaptable and flexible specialty that will allow for you to have interest and other components of your career outside of penical medicine in a pretty pretty manageable way, and so that was also part of my decision process yeah. I love that. I love because the way you start isn’t the way you finish and you learn so many things along the way and and you’re able to pivot, if you’re accept, if you’re successive to that or if you’re open to these other opportunities, which you obviously were in your career, has just gone down a completely different productor than you initially imagine exactly an xactly, so you came out of presidency. I know we’re rushing through because your or cvs is just is about the length of my arm and I want to make sure we get every little step of the way you came out of residency in New York. Where did you go from there? Yes, so during residency? Not only am I developing my clinical interest, but also my leadership in trust, so I started to think about quality and safety, so near Presbyterians, UNOMA institution, but you know different institutions operate different ways and so coming from the Cleveland Clinic, which is one of the top three or four hospitals consistently in the United States. I saw that things were done a little bit different and I wondered as an intern. You know why do things work this way here? Why are things maybe not as efficient or timely as I’ve seen in oven institution and as someone with a scientific background? I know that if I have a scientific question, there’s a scientific method with hypothesis and statistics in a way that we, you know, test a question to come up to a solution, but in medicine I wasn’t seeing that I was seeing a lot of brainstorming. I was seeing a lot of this is initiative we’re going to do and as an intern, you often wonder you know: is anyone at the table making these decisions that actually seems patience and because a lot of times it just wasn’t connected? And that’s when I was introduced to the science of Olite and Cruden and fell in love with a process standardized way of addressing clinical process problems, and I started working on transitions of care started. Working on will cause analysis around patient safe, even and so when I started to develop that interest, I said you know I want to do additional training in quality and safety, but also in leadership, because I knew that I wanted to do more outside of the clinical setting in an administrative role, and so back took me to the University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia where I will join the Robello Jose Foundation. Clinical Scholars Program, which is a two year program in the past, is now transitioned to the national penitants program, and that allowed me to spend two years focusing on quality and safety was able to do a visiting fellowship at the Joint Commission able to work with our patient safety tween at the University of Pennsylvania, and I got a masses of science and help policy research. So it was a great experience there in Philadelphia and it really set me up for the administrative rolls that I have today well yeah, that is it that is amazing, and so how does that program work? Because Robert Wood Johnson University is especially with Ruckers, if I’m not mistaken? So No, so this is who the foundation, so the Rob Wood Johnson Foundation is, you know one of the largest health foundations in the country and even even in the world, and they sponsor a number of programs. So for many many years they sponsored this development program for physicians, early career physician and a variety of locations in the so ucla, for example, University of Michigan, yell, university and others in the past have had them, and so is a cer program is extremely competitive, but individuals have gone on to become you know. Health Department leads the directors of Centripedal Services, department, chairs health care executives, a variety of of weight. So it’s not just teaching you how policy, but it’s really a leadership development program and you really focus on the area that is of interest to you yeah. It’s very interesting. Thank you for clarifying and so forgot two years can you kind of describe that the pay and the work load was it similar to the fellowship or residency or being attending yeah? So I think the pay was probably similar to a fellow it’s a non clinical Polish, so they’re not teaching you how to take your patient a cynically you are operating as an attendant, but most of us are doing about point one or point two critical times to what did that mean. For me it was a half day a leak of clinic, and I was working at the BA and feeling I’ll be as an attendant and then outside of that time. I was doing your search. I was doing classes. I was learning statistics study, design, health policy, the way that you interact with Community Organization to do participator research getting my masters as well as as doing research projects and developing interests, and so it was a very, very flexible program. You know that first year we had more class work. If you will and then second year, you spend a lot more time independently, developing your project as well as interest, and then, where did the other folks in a program come from you? You came at a residency where they’re attending, where their medical students or what was their make up. So everybody was outside out of residency. So it’s really a program for individuals who have just finished presidency or just finished Polish or maybe you can will be in fellowship, and so that’s where my other cohort was from and they’re all phenomenal they’ve gone on to do such amazing things, either at institutions and health departments, I’m extremely proud of them, but, like I said it’s an opportunity to spend two years to get the foundational training and knowledge, but then to take that and translate it into career that you can work in to transform the way we deliver here. That’s the biggest. They want to invest this time, an energy into you, but they want to see you flourish in making an impact in our industry. Definitely will include the link to this program. We can read more about it in the show notes and Dr Knight so coming out of this program. As we continue down your story. Where did you go from University of Pennsylvania yea? So after Pan I said you know, I’m ready to get a job, so I’m a early career physician, two years out of residency of the a non cynical fellowship and I’m looking for an administration’s job with a clinical component so want to be an academic medicine. Want T, have a faculty of pitmen want to have a clinical practice, but I also wanted to have a impactful role in quality and safety leadership, and I would say that at first someone, my age at that time, that was a little different, because most of my mentors in the space were individuals who had practiced for many many years and then developed an interest in quality and safety a little bit later on, and so it was more of a mid career move and so most individuals that I saw in the positions I was interested and which I was interested were individuals have been practicing for a long time. So I’m coming in, you know, Brit Art and Bush Sal Young Gentleman who says yeah I’m ready to take on this Leserre. So I was a little bit hesitant didn’t know what to expect for the reality was that the training and preparation that I was able to get the University of Pennsylvania at Cornell and, at my short time of the Joint Commission as a visiting fellow really set me up to be a competitive candidate. So I was able to interview it and a number of institutions and received a number of job offers to join their team and quality and safety. I ultimately decided to come to tw the George Washington University in Washington DC because they gave me the the largest opportunity to the impactful in this base of quality and safety. I felt that I’d had a lot of training a lot of theoretical work. When I was ready to get to work, I was ready to be able to have the time that I was set aside for me to be able to develop patient safety programs and initiatives and really have a seat at the table. And you know, Gw took a chance on me. You know someone early coming out of fellowships and- and I took a chance with them to say I’ll come in, but are you ready to change because at that time they did not have a large patient safety program in their ambulatory practices, and so I joined as the patient safety officer for the Division of General Internal Medicine and within three months became the patient safety officer for the medical faculty associates, which is the physician group that encompasses all of our ambulatory network in DC Maryland and Virginia. Well, that is impressive, and so can you tell us now what is a typical day like for you yeah, so over the I’ve been here at dw now for four years I had been serving esitation safety officer for that time and about a month ago I transitioned to a new role and now the associate chief quatty and population health officer and the head of heal care to live the transformation. So it’s a huge role. It encompass not only to patient safety, which I’ve been joying but also help your quality. So thinking about the way that we improve care for patience as well as our primary her service line, leading primary care, expansion for our organization and so my day to day, involves lots of meetings, lives of strategy, a lots of interactions to see your leadership, but also time to see patients I’m in clinic now about twice a week: okay, not only in primary care clinic, but also an ob CD, medicine clinic. And so I take care of patients who need general help, and I also have a specific clinic that takes your patients who are looking to manage their weight or to achieve a healthy wait for them. And so, when I’m not doing that. Another hat that I have is in education space. And so, as this is an academic institution, I started to become more involved in undergraduate medical education and I’m now serving, as course, director for the patient populations and systems course, which is a required course for all of our medical students. So of about a hundred and seventy pus students every year that take my course in the spring and they learn about health, equity, health disparity evidence based medicine, quality safety and health care technology. That is you’ve, said the word before impactful, that that is the definition of having an impact. Thank you, and you know ultimately that’s what I wanted to do. I think it. Ten years ago, five years ago, I asked what my career would be like. I would answer this. I think this a lot more multifaceted than I envision, but ultimately the reason that I do this every day is because I enjoy I’m passionate about it. I’m passionate about education, about operations, about the administration, about patient care, but ultimately it’s to provide equitable care to our community and that’s the common thread through all of my roles here professionally at w to that in, let’s take it back, you talked about making an impact and serving the community back in medical school or when was the first time that you really got involved with the student National Medical Association. So the student National Medical Association was really the home of my leadership experiences in organizations. I had not known about the organization before joining as a first year medical student coming from a historical Black College and university, one of the first things I did as my first, you know, experience being in the minority. If you will in a medical school, was look at the student organizations, and I said you know: Where can I find a community? Where can I find an organization that focuses on the news of my community and that’s why I saw student National Medical Association, so I remember going to my first chapter meeting to d learn about what was being done in Cleveland and are at our school, and I immediately became involved of the community service. Cotai went on to become the chapter president during my second year and then I started becoming involved at the national level. I I became the regional tear and then went on to become the national president in my fourth as medical school, and that was just a transformational experience for me to be able to develop programs in potful programs for chapters around the country of over six thousand medical students. Well, that would impact the lives of thousands of people that they interacted with. So during my presidency focused on H, B, at prevention on mentorship with the boys and Girls Club, also on developing a leadership development for our student and had an opportunity to present a congress to speak a numerous numerous event across the country during that year and as a medical student, and it was just so transformational in turning me into someone who I don’t know of a turning me, but really bringing out the charismatic person that I I guess I am definitely did not feel that way. Before I went to medical school, I was definitely afraid of public speaking. I did just did not see myself like that and through the SMA I was able to develop into a true leader, and that has carried on since that time. Well and as you were well aware, there’s plenty of eyes that are watching you and have watched your career progress. You know some of those guys are my own. I remember seeing you at one of the SMA conferences up on stage and a way you carried yourself. The way you spoke, there’s all obviously something different about you. There is this leadership qualities just signing through. So thank you for the impact that you had on my career as well. As you know, thousands of other people we thank you. Thank you for that. I appreciate it yeah I can’t speak enough about. SMA were privileged to have a Dr Elbow, the most recent past president of thesame, on a previous episode of the show, so love the organization and love everything it stands for. So so Dr Knight, coming out of the Sinamay there’s there’s because that’s a associated with a larger organization, the National Medical Association, which you’re also active in this organization. Can you tell us more about that sure? So I completed the student National Medical Associations, a student organization, so once I graduated from medical school, I went on to residence and said: okay, where am I going to become involved and I immediately became involved in the National Medical Association? I became the vice chair of the Post Graduate Section, which is a section for residents fellows and early correct positions and went on to become the post graduate type section, fair and trusting. I joined the board of Trustees of this organization that represents over thirty thousand African American position and have been around for a hundred and twenty six years. The National Medical Association was formed at the time when African Americans could not join other medical organization, and we needed a place that we could learn from each other, but also come together to advocate for the health of our community and since that time the National Medical Association has existed for doing just that. And so I have continued an enemy leadership from our resident leader to going on to being a regional tair when I was just finishing fellowship and coming to G W and I’m now a trusty for region for our reason, region to to the mid Atlantic part of the country serving on the board of Trustees in leadership and I’ve been involved in leading our committees around social media and branding membership convention and and now also serving as a subsection, far for general internal medicine or are internal medicine, section of the enemy and then and what is the Nima offer for young career physicians as well? As you know, mid career physicians? Why should they join that taks? A great question? And it’s one that that I get a lot, because the reality is as positions. We are pulled in many different directions. Not only do we have responsibilities at our home institutions, a variety of committees. Many of us have pulled into diversity, committees, educational committees, but then you have your professional society. So as an internist, I have the American College of position that the Society of General Internal Medic Im the obscenities association- and there are many many more depending on your specialty. So then, now we have an opportunity to join those right. So in the past a hundred years ago, we could, but now we do so now we can be involved. Why should we still be involved in organization like the National Medical Association, and I would say that of all the organizations that I’m involved in which are many and have leadership? I do have a leadership position in the American Medical Association as well, where I serve as a chair of my minority of fair section. The enemy still continues to be my home. I put, I consider it my professional home organization, I feel completely at home when I go to the National Medical Association, because I am surrounded by individuals with similar backgrounds, with similar focus on equity and on pursuing position sustainability, as well as optimal help for the African American community, and I have not found that in any other organization to the level that I have found it in the Anima. It’s not just about learning about the next breakthrough, in a treatment process and in tournal medicine. I can find that at the enemy, but I can also find colleagues who are from similar backgrounds have similar interests. In my specialty, every specialty is represented in the ENEMA. It’s just phenomenal. I mean I remember I went somewhere and I was I was describing it as like what conde for a PA position. It is literally like that when you go to our annual convention it’s virtual this year, but when we’re in person, I recommend all positions- medical students, residence fellow- If you can get to a anima tension, it’s always held in the summer, get there and you will have it’ll, be a life. Changing experience because walking into a convention center with three or four thousand African American positions from all over the country talking about issues that affect us and affect our cation is exceptional invaluable and you won’t find it anywhere else done all right, I’m going to sign up after we get off this phone call, I’m going to hold you to it, but you won’t be. You will not be disappointed, awesome! Well, Doctor Night, I been incredible speaking with you and seeing how your career is progressed and it’s only natural that you stepped off into doing more work with the media and really being the face of different organizations and policies. Can you talk about that aspect of your career? Yes, so you know when you talk about being the face of the organizations, I would be remisse. If I didn’t talk about my nonprofit organization, the Renewing Health Foundation that I actually founded as a interest. Well, you know when I came up for being a D and as when they had had a year riding hide. You know a year as a national president of a large organization during programming, doing intervention, and now I was a resident I said well. How am I going to take all of the tools and the skills that I have gained to really impact the lives of individuals, particularly in my own city, and, as I said before, you know, one of the biggest things for coming back to New York was being able to invest in the community that invested in me, and so I founded the Beni health foundations of five hundred and c three not proper or in it organization took care of all that paper work. You know between Callinice and and develop an organization that works to empower urban minority communities to live their best lives to have education, and that’s exactly what we’ve done since two thousand and twelve, and we have continued to build programming around minority health. Our largest program right now is our breast cancer education program that is raised over forty sand dollars to develop health education programs for African, American and Latino Women in the New York City Metropolitan area to learn about breast out breast cancer prevention and treatment, and have also launched a survivor network that is fate based and allows survivors to build communities and support each other, and so that is a huge, huge, huge part of what I’m able to to be involved in, and then I ll thought of that. When you talk about media work, I would say in the last twelve months my media present has is inces exponentially and ultimately was round Covin nineteen, you know as an out patient position and someone who’s involved in administration. You know I wasn’t the person who was in the ICU into bating patients who were suffering from conine and seeing the impact that I was having in my community. I said how could I be involved? You know I can’t be on the front line in the hospital. How else can I help, and I immediately started to see the misinformation that was going around around Covin nineteen yeah? You know that got to stand out in the sun that just gargle with lemon water, black people can’t get coved all kind of things. I was hearing our solamen and I said you know what we need: individuals who are able to get in front of the camera and talk to our community individuals that our community can see and can trust trusted. Voices. And you know sometimes it sounds very superficial, but the reality is individuals want to see people that look like them on television talking about important issues e and so when I started to get opportunities to do that, I jumped to it so since that Tom has done over sixty media appearances when all of the local major networks here in DC or ABC network Bv, You Name IT NBC Fox local, as well as some national news outlets and prince media, such as a Washington both new weekend. You name it I’ve done in different interviews, not just to be there, but really to get the factual information out there, and that has been so transformational. I remember when I got the vaccine that Ponne Bacsi in December, I decided to comcommon my experience on social media and that picked up at a lot of patience. Who said got you mat? I saw you get the vaccine and so out what you went doing that helped me to make the decisions for myself and picked up by our local station that they did a whole presentation on on my story and my involvement on social media and it was important. It was so important for individuals to see what my experience was when we’re dealing with something new that they had questions about, and so I look forward to continuing that media presence so that we can get batal information to individuals from trusted voices and to help them. I recently did a campaign with the US Department of Health and human services around for their trusted voices campaign around Covin nineteen vaccine concerns and use in a minority communities, and that’s what we focused on and not focusing on what we call hesitancy for, focusing on answering people’s questions so that they can feel comfortable, making a personal decision about their help. That’s that’s so incredible, so impactful and you’re actually definitely helping so many people. But, Dr God, I wonder as an incredibly busy position with multiple roles. Multiple Hats: How do you coordinate scheduling these different media appearances? So I am thankful to have a wonderful media tew and that I work very closely it, and so you know they’ll email me they’ll text need they’ll call me if I don’t respond that the night we have a media request. Actually just did one before this interview to to answer a question, and sometimes these questions are so simple to us as physicians. But these are things that people I need and so I’ll jump on to do a quick interview. If it’s something that’s on video, I usually walk around with my camera. Maybe a lighting so that I’m always ready to go when I travel, I always pack something, but if I need to do a quick interview in a hotel room, I can also do that. So it’s some flexibility, but I enjoy doing it good good, yes, good, to hear the behind the scenes. How you make things work, definitely awesome got tonight. You know enjoyed hearing about this renewing health foundation. I want to circle back around to that. So almost ten years, if the organization has been in existence when you started, you said you were a enter: Yes, interning internal Madison Wow, and how did you manage that throughout residency and when it is started to pick up? How did you manage the staff and constraints and all that yeah? So you know we devi, we depend on volunteers, and so initially it was just me going around and doing presentations that churches at community organizations on minority help, but particularly when we developed our breast cancer education program, which was was near dear to my heart. You know when I was a resident. My mother was Dignos with breast cancer and, thank God she was treated and is, is now cancer free, but it was an opportunity for us to develop something to address concerns and issues that I saw even with my own mother, who was an educated woman that still were a lot of things that she didn’t understand or that or barriers to her care. And so we developed this education program and immediately got volunteers who were were joining our tea wanted to be involved, and that’s what we’ve done. I have turned over a lot of the work to this volunteer team. I’m still around for Strategic Direction and of course we have an annual fund raiser every year in the fall on breast cancer awareness month in October. That’s why I’m heavily involved in we were virtual last year, but we continue to raise funds for programming and doing a variety of work. So you know the reason I usually tell people about the founding of the organization, because it’s really never a huge ultime unsurmountable barrier to your dream or your idea to have an impact in your community. You know someone could have said, why, don’t you wait till you get done with training and wait till your settled down before you start something like this. The reality is I’ve never been less busy right. I’ve always been busy and you’re always going to be busy if you’re passionate about something. If you want to get something done, find a way going. I went online, I said how do you, how do you applyd for a five hundred and in three and I follow the instruction and I did it? Yeah Lurk got an investment from folks, and here we are today and next year’ll be ten years. I was going to be phenomenal. I didn’t even think about that ten years of doing this work and I’m so glad I did it well. Well, let me ask you this: How long was it only you running this working in this organization? I would say at the beginning, it was me primarily, but I would say, within our first year I had volunteers war who had come on board, so it was. It allowed me to expand what we were doing and particularly when I moved out of New York, it was critically important to have a team on the ground that could continue our work. Thank you so much for sharing and doctor. I think you for coming on the show you’ve, given us so much things to think about to consider. I think, for people sitting back on to look at folks that are incredibly successful, have an incredible impact. It do yourself, you can kind of be overwhelmed. You know maybe you’re a medical student or a resident that wants to have an impact, but they d. You know your head can spin. If, if you think about too many things at the same time, what would you say to those folks that are the beginning of their career? Is a beginner education that want to have an impact such like yourself, I would say, don’t limit yourself based on other people’s perceptions or expectation, and I know this is so cliche, but you know people say where there’s a will there’s a way. It’s actually real every time that I’ve done something there’s a been at least one person. That told me I could not do it when I applied for the Rowel Johnson Font Chemical Scholars Program. I remember being told by an advisor that you know I shouldn’t necessarily waste my time applying because they’re looking for people with experience and not potential- and I remember coming home and telling my mother that on the phone- and she said- oh no, now you’re definitely applying for that program, and- and here we are today- and so that’s always going to be a yes. People may have their own perception based on their own experience, and maybe they were not successful with what you’re trying to do, but that doesn’t mean that you’re not going to be successful. I also encourage people to find seek out individuals who have done what you want to do, and sometimes that doesn’t mean that person needs to be your mentor right. You know. Mentorship is a very to very much a two way street and really requires a lot of investment. But maybe you don’t need a mentor. Maybe you just need to have feeding with that. Maybe you can just talk to them on the phone for twenty minutes, pick their brain and find out how they did something or maybe you’re just going to go to their linkin profile and see what they actually did to get where they are, which I have done many times, and it actually has led me to many of the things that have happened in my career. I looked and said: Who is an in a job that I want to be in in ten years and let me understand how they got thet. I may not follow the same past, but maybe I’m going to learn something for what they did and I start putting together different paths, putting together different strategies, and I get it done if you’re committed you can do it. Don’t let people deter you from something that you feel passionate about, because guess what the worst thing is to be ten yurs down the line and hate what you’re doing we have to remember why we went into this specialty why you went into this field and make sure that the decisions you’re making? Yes, some things we have to do just to pay the bills, understand that. But when you have an opportunity to do something that you’re passionate about then helps you go at home and feel like you’ve done something that at three am if Youre still up working on it. You don’t feel like you’ve worked all day. You actually feel excited about it. Let that be a part of what you do every day and I think you will find that life and your life work is extremely rewarding and you will feel like you will continue to have an impact in not only the lives of others but in your own life and feel that you have suspend to fulfilling your ultimate o that that was the word Dr Die. Thank you so much for joining us. You mentioned the linked in profiles. If people want to find out more about, you see the things that you’ve done and getting to watch your progress and success. How can they find you yeah? So I’m on our social media, but you can find me on witter also on Linkin MG night tmd. You can also find me on instagram and Fato at the district dock, though Pat District as in District of Columbia and then do det, and to that’s where you can find me so you’ll find some of my media word you’ll find some of what I do day today and you also be able to see some components of my career that we didn’t get to get you. But those are other things that I am excited about as well. Also at doctor do can’t thank you enough for coming on the show- and I know or listeners are going to be excited to hear everything that you’ve shared this episode. No thank you and I hope that people will be inspired to work towards their dreams and Ultimatelye to impact the lives of others and never miss an opportunity to do that. Black doctors, podcast is not prop in volunteer fashion project all inspiring all one week for another episode, a t freyr friendly en t