The Reality of Being Married to Medicine

shouldn't be celebrating it. Some things. They don't celebrate everything. There's a lot of things my parents would never, like you we never maybe twice in my life that I had a Halloween because they, you know, talked about how during that time of year, black folks were being lynched and killed and like they you know, made it very clear that Halloween night was not a good time for

a black people, especially in the South. And so you know, even thinking about Thanksgiving and you know, this is something started I think in like sixteen twenty or sixteen twenty one, uh, and it was the first meal of the pilgrims coming

to America. And it's like there's so many there's so much and they called it the New World, right, and it's just so much history that is that most people don't know, and it's so it tastes Actually, we should really have some black historians to come on and talk about how holidays that we celebrate now our our our our holidays that were started by people who were also colonizings.

Let's just say that's that's the most simple way that I could say it without trying to act like I'm in his story, and like these people were colonizers, right, So they were stealing land, stealing people, enslaving people, and then you know, creating holidays along the way, which have now become part of capitalism in our society, spending a whole lot of money to celebrate holidays that colonizes started. Sometimes some holidays they actually were like Veterans Day that

actually is a holiday that that black people started. But they these colonizers, like with everything else, take over the holidays and make them white holidays and then attach capitalism to them, and really we lose the essence of like how these things really began and where it came from, and what was the real history, whether the history is

good or bad. So I think we would do our We wouldn't be doing sir this or a good service to our audience not to mention the controversy around the idea of Thanksgiving and tell folks that they should do the research where they can do, like my family, talk about the issues with the colonizers and what happened to the Native Americans, if you will, They weren't Native Americans. They were just native people to the land before folks arrived and started their things given so I means a lot.

I think for me, I've been indoctrinated into these holidays who so long. You know, my kids love Halloween and I and I felt like the bad guy because as I've become became more knowledgeable and understanding the history, I wanted to be like, man, I'm not doing Halloween, you know what I'm saying. But it's something that they love. They loved going to get their candy, and they love to go do the doors. So I didn't want to

personally take that from them. You know, I want to educate them as they get older on what the actual meaning of Halloween and where comes from. So I always want them to be informed and knowledgeable about what's going on. Also with Halloween, it's it's something that my family, you know, always celebrate. It was like probably my favorite day of the year. You know, I've seen all my cousins and aunts and uncles that I never hadn't seen all year.

It was just that one day we will all go to one of our family member's house and we would eat and we would laughing with Joe, can you see your favorite uncle and your favorite cousins? Halloween? I said Halloween first, and I said, you said Halloween again because I was sitting and life, Listen, what am I to? I mean Thanksgiving? Thanks So that was one of the things.

And as we get the knowledge and understand how the natives were slaughtered during this time, it's definitely something that's something that we really want to celebrate, but you know, we don't want to take away that family cornie at the same time, so you know, it's it's like we have to teach the history right at the same time.

And I think that's with every area. We have to teach the history because while you know, we're celebrating it, and I guess I have some hesitancy because it feels and we talk about being walking contradictions every day, because you know, it feels so to think of the Native people to this land and to know that this time represents, for so many of them, as you said, a time when their people were slaughtered. It represents a time when

everything that they once knew was taken from them. And then a holiday was created and people celebrated without even really discussing the nature of like the remembrance of the Thanksgiving holiday in this and this time period. And so

I just, you know, I think you're right. You have to teach the history of these holidays and so much history to your children so that when you are really kind of just taking a day off from work, getting the day off from work and getting family together, that it's not lost on us as a people, everything that this country has done and how we um, you know, I guess how we have to respond to capitalism when we're not respected as full citizens still, you know, and

we're talking about the Native people and now we call the Native Americans, but even we as black people in this nation have never received our full rights and been respected properly. And so you know, they use these holidays because they like our one point five trillion dollars, that's right, And I think that's that's what actually was the catalyst

behind my boycotting and boycotting black owned businesses. You know, I think we're seeing what happening with Kyrie, and I think this listening to the seeo oh, his his verbage and just responding and the way he spoke of Kyrie, it was like somebody that he didn't even see as a human being. He's seen him on his property. You know, we we we chose to just just disregard this person. You had, you know, a partnership with somebody and because of one misstep or mishappened, you know, you chose that.

You know, I'm willing to lose hundreds of millions of dollars, millions of dollars that need be to show that I have some level of power. And that that that really bothered me, understanding that what if this is the only way that Kyrie was able to feed his family? What if all of these things negatively affective and nobody cared about him as an individual. And I'm like, damn, I don't see people do that to their own culture, you know what, to our culture. So I said, you know what,

we have to start empowering our culture. So we're able to make those breakages or those you know, we're able to separate from organizations and people who don't mean us well. So I say, I have to push back on that. I feel like maybe it doesn't happen as often, and I don't have in this minute, uh several examples, right, just because it's not something that I watched. But I know that there's been NBA teams that or NBA owners that have been forced to sell their teams for saying

racist things. I know that there have been endorsement deals by you know, some athletes who have lost endorsement deals because of domestic violence and or again racist comments or whatever. So I'm not gonna say that the that they that they never hold white folks accountable, because that's that's not my conversation. I'm looking at. I'm looking at what he's being told, you know, what he's been accused of in

the level of ament. Right, So when you talk about when you talk about the those owners, those owners have full text message. When they're calling people niggers, they have like like they have whole and the thing is they're selling it to their friends. When you gotta sell the company, they're still making money off of it at the bottom line. So these are older this is a game, you understand saying it's it's really just a game that they're running

that we know. I know the game that they were like, Okay, I gotta sell this to my friend. I gotta be in the cut because they caught me being racists. All me and all my friends is racist anyway, because they just didn't catch the email that he said to me. But I'm the one that got caught. So we all gonna play in this game. So I know that game you're playing, but it's but it's actually your words and

it's actually vulgar. It's to the point where it's like them, we can't even sit in the same room because we know that you're you had ill intention and you felt these you felt very negatively. That that's when there's accountability. But for somebody, a lot of these these owners our friends with racist non racist KKK members, they fund those things, they in rooms with them, they're in close proximity two things that as anti black all the time, and there's

no accountability to that, right. So for for Kyrie to be held to that stated for posting up a damned documentary when ninety percent was about black history, and in a couple of the instances in there probably was something that he didn't even pay attention to because it wasn't something that he was focused on, you know what I'm saying. And Okay, we we give them the accountability he apologized. You give him maybe a game or two or whatever

it is. But to completely sever ties with that man from million dollar businesses and and um um partnerships that he had because you said he stepped over the line like he's some type of boy or some type of kid,

it was. It didn't even make sense to me. So understanding that that's a possibility that they can do stuff like that made me say to myself, I can't I can't knowingly allow that to continue to keep happening to me, right, I can't be aware that they have people that can cut ties with me, cut ties with people that look like me, people that are start works in our culture, people that we idolize in the culture, and we haven't created anything or funded anything that can make sure that

they can still feed their children. Like, for me, that's just not okay. So I say, you know what, First of all, I'm not buying anything Nike again, and I was one of a major support of Nike. First of all, I'm not but I'm personally not buying it again. I don't really see when I never even wear anything that I bought again. But secondly, I want us as a people to to normalize holding people accountable who don't value us? Right? Why are we giving our our dollars to people who

we know do not value us? How do we how? Why aren't we able to say I'm not gonna spend thousands of dollars with people who are able to lose millions of dollars just so that they can make a point about how they're not going to deal with certain type of AGAs for months? So why can't we say I'm not gonna even give my money to somebody, right we I'm not gonna continue to make somebody a billionaire.

I don't know why we don't think that we need to show that we have some level of respect for ourselves, because if we don't respect ourselves, how can we expect anybody to respect us? So I'm I proposed on my page that we stopped buy a Nike at least for this holiday season. I personally I don't ever see me doing it again. But I'm saying those who need to see the increments to understand the power that you have.

Say for this whole holiday season started with UM, started from last week when I first said to do it. I want to make sure that that Black Friday, it's us buying black, it's making sure that we're invested in black UM companies and organizations. So I've been posting mad crazy different black owned businesses on my pages so that you can go to that, you can support that, you can spend your black dollar with your black and the visual organization and your black people so we can watch

the black dollar flourish through our community. And then I'm continuously doing on that and I'm saying I want you to see your power. I want you to understand that Black Friday is is generally when we go out and spend the most money. So why are we invested in our own communities? Why we are we investing We got Sneakers that's way better than Nike. But for somehow we've trained our minds that if we don't have these Nikes, that some level of status we lose or continue to

make these people billionaires that don't even value us. Is it makes sense? So I'm I'm I said to myself, I know I'm an avid Nike buyer, and I want to discipline myself. I want to prove to myself that I'm I'm work. I'm worth more than these sneakers are. You know, I'm worth more than this status quote is. I feel violated. So I'm willing to sacrifice something. So I'm asking everybody continue on Black after Thanksgiving, Black Friday.

Don't go on and spending. Find a black organization, find a black company, find some black sneakers to bid they have. Go to my page. You'll see hundreds of people that you can go to. And yeah, because I'm gonna have by the by the time tomorrow, I'm gonna have a hundred people on it because I probably got about forty or fifty different organizations that you can go to. You're talking about, Yeah, it's about forty different places. And they're

not organizations. They companies, organization, companies, organizations. Some of them as companies. Organizations have a mission or they should have a mission to some type of service. Companies are for benefits, and that's good. We should have all those dynamics. But dynamics, but these people. And that's and the reason why I'm making the distinction. We have an organization and we have right. Oh yeah, I mean, of course you could buy organizations.

That's what I'm saying. That that's true. I'm not saying that's true, flat out that's true. However, the bigger point is that there are a lot of companies that we're posting that you're posting UM, and we need to make sure that those companies understand that money is being pushed in their direction and they got to do business right. Whole link with about sixty different high end black owned Yeah, do business, guys and your business quality business. That's the

reason why I said that. But you're right, I stand correct that there are organizations, not just Until Freedom, but many who have their own merch and T shirts and things of that nature. So that's important. But I was specifically focusing on the companies and making sure that these companies are doing good business with the clientele UM and making sure that people can reach you, you know, and that your your information, your financial collection and stuff is good.

You know, your e commerce is set up properly, like, please make sure that you do all of that. Most of the companies are already ordered something. Um. So most of the companies are, but there are some who still need to get their their things together. And it's okay to say, hey, well I'm working on this and I'll be ready in two weeks, three weeks or whatever, um, But I'm not necessarily ready to start taking orders that I can't fulfill because I don't have the shoes, I

don't have the merchandise. Like, let's be for real, so that you know, it's a good experience. Now, of course, we have to have patience because we know that our people do not benefit from the way that capitalism operates. With white folks and big businesses like a Nike or any other kind of business, we don't have that. So we are trying to get ourselves to that level. And sometimes it takes a little bit of patients, but doing bad business is never accepted. Will no matter what level

we were at, definitely have to do good business. So you know, we we're gonna show our economic power this holiday season. You know we're going to divest and invest in us man. So by black man, go to my page and you'll see all of the black designers there, so many from high end you know, shoes and clothing to sports in athletic with whatever you need. We got it on my page, Man by Black speaking of of you know, buying black caring for ourselves as black people.

We talk on to show a lot about Black women health. We had coach Jesse on. Now we have another guest that's coming up, and you know, I think it's so important because we're trying to focus on everything our mental, our pocketbook, our physical. We're trying to make sure that even our brothers get an opportunity to learn about women's

health because that has been such a disconnect. Just like you mentioned and then the last show, you never even knew that there was a reason for you to care about these things that was women's business take care of.

But we want to normalize conversations around health disparities and around you know, things that, um, you know women, ways in which women take care of themselves, need to take care of themselves, um, and really just making sure that as we talked about our economic power, we're not rich and sick, you know, rich and day you know, you know, have a thing. Yeah, we have things and don't have life.

And so this Thanksgiving season or whatever, I think that there's another term that folks started calling and no friends giving, friends giving, friends giving, family giving during this time. A big part of it is making sure you have but tomorrow when you walk into your family home and you're about to pick up that that whatever with with the um Queen of fool Is said, what you eat also

impacts a woman's reproductive system. When you're putting that good macaroni and cheese and all of that good stuff that I plan to eat in your mouth, just know that it's also impacting your body. Let's go to our guests, so at least, you know, we now have started to bring new friends onto the show because the last few weeks it's been a lot of new friends joining us and people who quickly become family because they're doing such incredible, incredible,

incredible things. Um, you know, Black Folks is just doing it. And I love the fact that our show, you know, unapologetically focuses on black excellence. And certainly our guest today

is an excellent black woman. Uh Dr Simone. Most of you know her from being on the show, married to medicine, but there's so much more to this woman born in Nashville, went to Spellman College, and you know, all the Greats went to Spellman more House, So all the Greats um to Spellman and and O. B. G. Y N, who is also an activist in her own right for black women. She has a family, a husband that you've seen on the show. She's got two children. So much with this woman,

and we're gonna learn more today about Dr Simone. Thank you so much for joining Street Politicians. Thank you so much for having me. It is an honor to be here. It is definitely honor to have you. How are you feeling today? I am doing great and would love to just share some of the things that I have learned over the years about black women's health and the importance of black women taking care of ourselves and putting ourselves as number one. We're speaking of taking care of ourselves.

You tell us about you because we don't know. We see you on the show and we see this beautiful, dynamic black woman, but we don't know about your background and how you got started. I'm originally from Nashville, Tennessee, born and raised. I was born and raised by two a two parent home with an alcoholic dad. My mom divorced him around the time I was fifteen. Sixteen years old, but early in my life, probably eight to ten years old, he just wasn't as functional as a dad, couldn't keep

a job, wasn't home a lot. When he was home, uh, highly intoxicated. So that was my life. And my mother was really smart. She worked really hard, She kept a full time job, and she took really good care of my sister and I. Education was always what she preached and there were no other options other than education in the household. I grew up there. When I was twelve in junior high school, I was asked by my teacher to do a research paper on what I wanted to

be when I grew up. And at the time, at twelve, I knew that I wanted to help handicapped children. Nashville had something every year called Special Olympics where they would highlight, you know, handicapped children and we would go out volunteer and participate, and I knew I wanted to be in that arena helping handicapped children. And I went to my dad and asked him, Hey, you know, I have to write this research paper and I want to help handicapped children.

And he said, well, I such and such does that. She didn't make any money. You're gonna want to be a children's doctor so you can make money. And I went to the library because at that time we didn't have Google. Um this was then early uh late seventies, early eighties. So I went to the library, got the encyclopedia out and found out a children's doctor is a pediatrician.

And I patterned the rest of my school into becoming a pediatrician, which which meant taking a science, a math, a foreign language in English every year because that was gonna be required for me to go to college college. When I got to high school, I was fortunate enough to have a black guidemce counselor, and she said to me, I want you to go to an HBCU, she said. Now, I sit on the board at Lane, she said, but I want you to aspire to go higher than that,

to look at a school like Spellman. So after I did my research on Spellman College, I did a senior weekend at Spellman and knew I was home. Now I had to come home and sell it to my mother, who at this time is for you're a single mother. She's thinking she can't to Ford Spellman College. Most of the people I graduated from high school. They went to Tennessee State, Middle Tennessee State, those schools, and so I had to convince my mother that Spellman College was it.

We would apply for financial aid and we would just make it happen. And that's exactly what happened. I um applied to Spellman as a early applicant in the senior year, got accepted, didn't apply to any other schools, attended Spellman, and my first year at Spellman, so being on a campus with all all of these beautiful black women. Growing up in Tennessee, it was black, it was white. I didn't see Indians, I didn't see Mexicans. I saw black, I saw white. That was it my limited little scope

of things. So I get to Spellman. I'm seeing all the different beautiful hues of black, but to the point where I would see want someone who was very fair skin and I would say, oh, okay, so there's a white student and they would be like, no, she's black. And you know, I had to learn that, Okay, it doesn't matter what somebody looks like that I'm thinking that they look like I gotta let that judgment go. But

it was an amazing experience. I get there as a freshman, and every single week we had convocation where we had to go in the chapel and a dynamic black woman who was already out in the community in her career in various cities would come to the chapel and they would speak to us and they would say, I had the opportunity to be where you're sitting, and look where I am now, or I didn't have the opportunity. I went to a white school, but look where I am now,

and you two can be here. It was an amazing experience and just I had that love and the support of being told you can do it. I love Spellman. In nineteen nine and Um went to East Tennessee State hill In College of Medicine. Now I'm my whole life. I'm thinking I'm smart. I'm thinking I'm gifted. Who got to medical school? Medical school kicks some buts, and so you know, it was there that I realized, Okay, I'm average.

I gotta work hard, but I'm just average. And I was the only black female in a class of about fifty six and there was one black male in my class. But it was here that taught me so much about medical school was where I learned the most about racism. I had always known that it existed and felt that I had experienced some minor issues, but medical school was

certainly a whole another challenge. I would walk in UM to a patient's room and they would say to me, I don't have nothing against y'all's kind, but I don't want to see you, and you know, I would walk back out. I was completely fine with that, because I believe that people have the right to see who they want to see. But it was an interesting UM thing

as in medical school. I never shaved my legs. I had hairy legs, and I've shaved under my arms for purposes of hygiene, but I had never shaved my legs. And get to medical school and we're, you know, going in doing a history and physical want a patient and the white attending It's like, okay, note this patient has poor hygiene. So if the patient did not have shade legs, amongst some other things, she would be considered in poor hygiene. So I started shaving my legs, but you know, because

I definitely never had poor hygiene. But it was funny just learning things from a whole another standpoint and making some adjustments in my own life. Uh, that were neither you know, good nor bad. But I did make the adjustments.

I left East Tennessee State. I graduated in nineteen ninety three, left there and went to Boston Medical Center, where I was in the heart of the city um seeing patients and doing my residency training in ob July in And let me back up, because when I entered medical school, I knew I wanted to be a pediatrician. I got there, there was a little boy. Uh during my first rotation of my clinical year, which is the third year, there was a little boy who came in at ten years old.

He had a by sickle accident, fell off the bicycle. He basically came in unresponsive. The e R team worked on him for about an hour and fifteen minutes and they were not able to resuscitate him. I never met his mother, but I could hear her screaming through the ear when she was told that he didn't make it. And I made a decision that day. I called my mother boo hoo who because I'm I knew that I could not be that one to tell a mother that her child didn't make it. And from there I was like,

am I gonna do surgery? Am? I gonna do O B G I N. And when I did my O B G I N rotation, I knew that was where God wanted me to be because I loved everything about it. And UM went UH started residency training in Boston and again, and I may in experience because the majority of the patients were black. We had a lot of women who were on heroin and cocaine, and UM. It was definitely

another eye opener. Growing up in Nashville, I we I grew up on the UH lower income side, but I never I never met her, saw a drug addic in Nashville, And so here I was in the heart of Boston, UM seeing crack addicts, seeing heroin addicts, and I would see a woman come in throw her baby out, like literally just push her baby out and leave back out in an hour and leave that baby to the system.

And so from that I decided that probably going into a hospital with lower socio economic probably wasn't gonna work for me emotionally. I left Boston went to Memphis, Tennessee for private practice for two years. My goal in my dream was to come back to Atlanta, but at the time I left residency in nineteen seven, Atlanta was a very competitive market to get back into, but it was the one place that Cecil and I um agreed that we could live. I met Cec who as a senior

as spellman. He was a senior at Morehouse College at the time, and we dated that year, broke up because we were young. Broke up. I headed on to medical school. He hit it back to Los Angeles, where he was originally born and raised and took a corporate job. We um stayed in touch. I called it a fake friendship because I would be like, Hey, I called you last night, you weren't home. Did you stay the night out? No? No,

I was hanging with the fellas. Was a fake friendship, and eventually, towards the end of medical school, we made an agreement that we would get back together as a couple. We would try the long distance thing, and once I got to Boston, we made a decision that he would relocate to Boston, and he reached out to some more House brothers. They got him a job in Boston. He came,

and a year after he came, we got married. But when we listed, each of us listed five cities that we would be willing to live in Nashville was on my list of places. Um Atlanta was on my list of places. But the only city that was on both lists was Atlanta. But I did not get a job. So are interviewed in Houston, Texas, Austin, Texas, Memphis, Tennessee. And I had a sister, my baby sister, the only sister I have. She was in college in Memphis at

the time. We made a decision to move to Memphis, and I was in private practice in Memphis for two years and then I landed a job here in Atlanta. And I've been in Atlanta every since nineteen. I love Atlanta. Everybody lives in Atlanta. So you did all of that? How did how did you end up on TV? From having this like professional like I just I see like the transformation, like coming from you know, well to do kind of like well to do to family home and

just you know, and then not well to do. Keep in mind my dad was an alcoholic and couldn't even have keep a job. But my mother attended Tennessee stage at a full time job. And I always lived in a two bedroom apartment. We never lived in a house because he couldn't keep a job, but she made it work. She made it work, but it was but it wasn't. Uh. You you grew up in a situation where you had support,

Yeah I did, I did. Yes, Yes, you had support, and then you went college you had this beautiful experience, and then you went to when you went to medical school, that was when when I'm hearing how you just realized that racism really existed at that point, And that's that must be I don't I don't even know how I would feel walking into the room and people like, you know, I don't want your kind to deal me And this is a profession that I wanted to get involved with.

That mustn't really tough, man. So how did you make the transition from doing all of those things to TV? How did that even come about? Um? When I came to Atlanta, I came, like I said, in ninety nine, at some point Real Housewife of Atlanta started And at the time they started, uh, you know, I was watching Cecil and I watched a lot of reality TV show even before that, like Survivors, uh, the American Idol, those

kind of shows. Anyway, one day, out of the blue, one of my patients who I had also become friends with, she asked me, you know, would you be willing I'm trying to develop some concepts, would you be willing to audition? So I auditioned two or three years UM. I had received an email from a lawyer friend of mine who knew that the Doctor's show was starting UM on ABC. I auditioned for that, but at the time, never having

been in television, never auditioned for anything in television. Before interviewing for the Doctors and now what it's called Mary to Medicine, I didn't. I didn't wear makeup other than lipstick. I didn't wear makeup. I didn't where we've and so you know, I'm interviewing without makeup with without you know, we've And finally on the third audition, the third audition for this concept for Mary to Medicine, my girlfriend she said to me, she said, I want you to get

professional makeup. I want you to put on your cutest black dress and give it to him. And so again it was a concept. I knew I didn't want to be on housewives. I enjoyed watching them, but I didn't think I had the stamina to be on housewives and UM, and so I just was like, you know, I don't lose anything by auditioning for this show. I would love to be on TV. And then boom, I get a call, Hey, you've been chosen for Married to Medicine. Bravo has picked

us up and we're gonna shoot a show. So I'm like, okay, bet, still not knowing exactly what I was getting into. But what I would say, having been on my show now for nine years, is that I love my show. There are some things about it that are amazing and fantastic, and I've certainly been in the room with some people I would not have been in the room with otherwise. And then there's the down part where women you like or you think you trust, we fall out and we're

not speaking anymore. UM. That has probably been the toughest part of reality TV for me. How many seasons have you been on? Nine? So it was it nine years? So okay, I'm one of the o gs. Oh wow you from the beginning of nine years. It's the season every year is that Oh my gosh, that's a that's a lot of filming, UM And we know because we film also for things, and we filmed a lot of UM of the not this season, but the season prior of um loving hip hop because they were with us

in Kentucky while we were fighting for Brianna Taylor. Remember saying that, Yeah, the cast members joined us and so we did a lot. And I'll tell you so much of it is harrying up to wait. You know, everybody's got a Harry, Harry Harry and then you do nothing but sit around and wait to actually film the show. Um, and it's it's it's a lot of work. But do you have regrets because I know that it's taken you

away from your children at time. Obviously you know, we all know that there's been challenges in your marriage that played out on TV. Like, do you have regrets that your whole life has sort of been on the big screen or you at this point just like you know, it is what it is. And the other thing is coming from Nashville, you are very very assertive. Um. Just you know, watching you here, you would one would think, okay, you came from I don't know exactly where in Nashville,

but a town in Nashville. Maybe you wouldn't be the person to decide to become a doctor because you know, perhaps you might not want to go in the rooms as my son said, But then, okay, you overcome that. Now you go and you, after all these other things, you get on TV and decided to to put yourself out there. It's very, very empowering for someone who's sitting in not Nashville or a country town around this country that they can become very much like you if they

take chances. I think that it is important, number one, to surround yourself by people of like mind, who are who aspire to be successful and to be the best that they can be at whatever it is a person chooses, it just so happened for me. My love was science, and medicine was the next best step for me. But what I say is that being on TV has definitely had its challenges. But I come as my authentic self. I don't try to pretend to be somebody that I'm not. I don't try to act out in a way that

I wouldn't act out in my normal life without the camera. Um, it is a very taxing for months out of the year when we film, because you're busy, and I tell anybody it's like working to full time jobs. At the same time, we have had the same production company for nine years and they accommodate my schedule as a doctor. So everyone understands that I'm in solo practice. I share night and weekend call with some other ladies, but not

the daytime. And so in the daytime, if I'm filming and I say to the production crew, hey, my lady is ten centimeter she's feeling pressure. I gotta go, everybody just understands and they get it. And you know, the production crew, they get excited. Uh they have rigged my car with camera us so that they can, you know, see me drive down to the hospital and fuss at the people in traffic to get out of my way so I can hurry up and get to my baby.

But again, that part of it has been amazing. Now there are some parts where you know, production says, hey show up at seven pm and you get there at seven and they're not ready for you. They're not gonna be ready until seven seven. That's what this is for. So in my car, my laptop is there. Every time my head somewhere, my laptop is there. Because you learn how to utilize that extra thirty forty five minutes until

they're ready for you. I'm a people part. You are a real medical doctor, like absolutely just a TV doctor, real medical profession, that's right. I am boy certified and O B, G I N. And I have been in private practice since nineteen ninety seven. How may deliver? What do you think about you? You know, like I said, I've been in private practice since nineteen nine seven and I deliver about a hundred and two hundred babies a year. Since COVID, how how has COVID like impacted the O

G Y N professional? How do you see an impact especially black women? How do you how do you see that plan out? I think COVID truly highlighted the healthcare disparities with African Americans. Baby, we are at the top of the list for everything that gets ignored. So I feel like now my schedule is just overflowing with black women who want to see a black woman. And that

was something I had never felt in my career. Yes, sometimes the patient would come in and say, oh, I was looking for a like doctor and I found you. But the majority of the time of patients come in and just say, oh, you were in my zip code or my insurance company said you are on my plan. And now the majority of the women I see new patients,

they have sought specifically sought out a black female. UM George Floyd's death, and not to discount anybody else's like Brianna Taylor or Mark Aubrey, but George Floyd's death and COVID how really brought to the forefront and highlighted the disparities that we as African Americans have by the disparities with the police force, in the health care system. And I think that again, it is a wonderful thing to see people rise to the occasion. I know that something

needs to be done. But when I say pe boll, I mean everybody, not just blacks, also whites, because this was the first time you even see marketing a little bit different with some of these major companies now and brands. And I think that, um, we have suffered a long time. We have suffered a lot, and I do feel like some people are trying to make amends. We have a long way to go, but we as blacks, we have to we have to own accountability and we have to

put ourselves first. And when I say own accountability, you know when you get pregnant, you really need to number one. Especially with role versus way being overturned. You need to be in a relationship with somebody you want to have a baby with. In today's time, you want to be in the best health. You want to be on your prenatal vitamin. You really want to be at your best way.

Because when you come into the pres men see and you're morbid Leo Bees or you're almost morbid Leo Bees, you have a higher risk of everything, higher risk of preterm labor, higher risk of pre acclamsy, higher risk of gestational diabetes, higher risk of dying in labor and childbirth. And so you have to know that you've got to

take the best care of yourself. And I'm not saying don't get pregnant if you're overweight, do it, but just know and try to be attentive beyond time to those pre natal visits and follow those to a t. If the doctor asks you to start medication for high blood pressure, start the medication despite your mama telling you not to. Because those are the some of the challenges that we have where patients will come in and they'll say, well, my mama said I shouldn't take that medication. But I'm like,

you're black. I'm black, and I'm asking you to take the medication. And what I try to reassure my patients. I don't come in with a bunch of medical jargon. I talk to you as if you were my best girlfriend, if you were my sister, UM, because I want you to understand that you and I are the same, we are no different, And I take care of you because I love my job and for no other reason. So

you find so you have found that. UM. I guess when I'm hearing you say on the accountability piece, and it is always very triggering when we hear people talking about black folks taking accountability because we feel like we're always we always have to be accountable for everything and we are forced to. Um you know, I guess we we deal with the harshest of society everything. But when I hear when I hear it in the context for which you were just saying, you gotta take care of yourself.

You're gonna get pregnant right now. Again, like you said, Roe v. Wade has been overturned. Many states are having issues with the right to choose. We even have issues where um, you know, people are unable to get access to birth control. So if you're having sex, you have to make the right decisions, make sure that whomever you're engaging with is someone that's taking care of themselves so that they can take care of you. And your body must be taken care of. You know, you just said

your weight. You talked about your prenative vitamins. I know so many young women that don't take prenative vitamins. They don't take them at all, you know, And then once they have a baby, there are other challenges that exist in terms of how they're still either taking care of themselves and their baby or not. And so from that perspective, accountability sounds right, you know, it sounds right. We have

to be smarter about the decisions that we make. And I wonder, as you're in this field, do you find yourself being more like you said, good girlfriend? You know, do you find yourself being like a therapist for so many women? And and not so much that you're unable to do your job, but you spend a lot of time being drained by having to wear those that have of of counseling and coaching women along. So let me

say that it is not draining. And and I do often get in trouble when I say accountability, but in a major metropolitan area, like Atlanta. All of these young people, they have cell phones. So if some doctor gives you a diagnosis, I need for you to get on Google. We're googling everything else. We're googling the lyrics to this phone. We're googling the latest trend and outfits. Get on Google, right down the name of you know this disorder or disease that the doctor has given you. Get on Google.

Do some research about that disease. Be able to come the next time and ask questions and say, hey, you said that, How did you come to this conclusion? What are my treatment options? Oh? You only gave me one treatment options, but I read over here there are two other ones. How do you feel about that? And understanding that we have choices. You don't get the right answer with Dr A. It's time to head on over to Dr B. I know that everyone doesn't have access. I

know that UM and we're not all. I feel like I'm a teacher. I'm an educator in my job. I am a therapist in my job, and what I try to do is help women understand. I had a patient one time, Boo, when she had gotten pregnant by someone she was dating for less than six months. They broke up during the pregnancy, hit moved on. He got a

new girlfriend. Now she has the baby, and he's telling her that he wants a DNA test, and she was so upset and so angry, and I said to her, I said, listen, I said, if I have two sons and so a DNA were request, even though you know you have been with him, it it is not an unreasonable request that he's asking. And also for legal reasons, once you have that declared that he is the father, you can hold him accountable financially. That's sort of a thing.

So this is not a negative thing that he's asking you. But I try to just have empathy when I'm talking to my patients, but I also try to get them to take some accountability to for actions and what are we gonna do differently moving forward with the next guy that we choose to have sex with. For fan, don't have sex. I was a young person who had sex.

But let's let's go into the relationship thinking of me, myself and I when we enter that relationship, it must be a lot because when I'm listening to you, right, I have a feel like I have phobias, and like doctors and all types of things like that. So a lot of us are scared to ask questions, right, A lot of us are scared to go against the doctor. The doctor says something, you don't you know you you just go with the doctor says you don't You don't

really question that. A lot of us have that. Do you find that a lot of people that you deal with have those same issues that you have to give them levels of courage to even inquire about the health. One of the reasons I worked so hard on my bedside manner is to break down that barrier. If you see me like I'm your friend, like we could kick it, because at the end of the day, I'm a human being just like you are. If you see me like that, I think it helps too to humanize doctors and know that, okay,

I can ask her questions. And I also think it helps the patients to realize in any other setting. So that's the relationship I have with my O, B g U, I N. I need to look for that relationship with the primary care doctor, with the cardiologists, with the end of chronologists. And what I always remind patients is that

different doctors have different personalities. That's okay, but in a major metropolitan area like Atlanta, d C, Houston, you got options, and don't just settle if somebody is asking you, if you're asking a question and somebody is not answering those questions. And again Google is a good source of information, but if you can't go in to your doctor or and

discuss what you read on Google, that's a problem. And the more and more that we educate young people, you know, even when I give the opportunity to give lecture and there are older people in the room, again, I keep it simple when we talk about cardiovascular disease with strokes and heart attacks, I tell them, if you know every Sunday you're going by the Popeyes, we got a problem because the Popeye's is not the best thing for you.

And we gotta do more fruits and vegetables, fresh fruits and vegetables and just talking two people and educating in a way that we get it. It's not that complicated, it's not that threatening, but in a way that we

can reach the masses. Yeah, well, I am. I can hear from the way in which you're speaking that you have the type of doctor that doesn't run out of the room in five minutes because you know, most most those offices they back it up ten minutes with the patient, which includes actually doing the physical portion and the conversation and as also O B G y ms. I've had many um that you know that I did not I

didn't feel I didn't. I just didn't feel protected, respected or even um And you know, as I've gotten older. In fact, I was on a I did a show with Jada Pinkett Smith, a red table talk uh some time back, and there was a woman there who broke down how dangerous it is for your doctor not to pay attention and spend time with you, and how that led to some very serious health challenges that she had.

And I left there and made a decision that I would not go back to the doctor that I had because she just didn't treat me well, you know, and I honestly I didn't even like her. And I always thought, like my son growing up, it didn't matter. It was like a transaction. You just go to the doctors and you don't have to like them. You just go. You get done with it. Is they can be rude to you, it doesn't matter, because it's just enough that I've learned

that a relationship with your doctor. It's super important. So you talked about spreading your message to the world, and now you have a book that I've heard. I think that you're not telling folks the name of the book yet. But do we know what the book is about? And how do people stay in touch with you other than watching your show? What are some other ways that folks can stay in touch with you to, you know, learn more about the tips of taking care of themselves as

black women. So Number one, Cecil and I were writing a couple's book because we have been married for twenty six years and we wanted to be able to share some of the anothers that have kept us together. I filed for divorce inen we were have being s marital problems that I didn't think we were gonna be able

to overcome. And let me say, if it were not for a reality TV and for the couples that are on my show that believe in marriage, that believe in sticking in through the tough times, Cecil and I would not have made it. We are both very, very stubborn people were headed down a divorce track. Not angry. He wasn't angry, I wasn't angry. Um but just you know, we had backed up in our corner like I'm not

gonna compromise with you anymore. And it it was the cast that got in our faces during Reunion, I think season five. They got in our faces and helped us realize that we should be fighting for our marriage just like they were fighting for our marriage, both of us. And we hadn't dealt with anything that was significant enough that we should have even been going through a divorce in the first place. But I am a woman who wallows in my pettiness in my buildings, and that was

part of the struggle. But let me say that I am on UM. Most of the social media platforms uh, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, I don't spend a lot of time on social media UM and I you know, most of my posts are social, they're not medical. When I get the opportunity wherever I'm asked to come and give a medical lecture, I do that. One year, I came to a room full of midwives and doulas. I was asked to come there by the one of the women who helped put that event on,

and I got booed. I got booed when I talked about black women taking some accountability and learning to go on Google. Um. I got booed when I stated that, yes, a doula is welcome in the living room, but she has to know her place. There's a place for the do Look who has a certificate in training and there's my place who has a doctorate in medicine and who had a residency training for four years. And we're not

on the same level. But the goal of the patients should be the same and there should not be an antagon antagonistic relationship in the delivery room. Um. Again, I know the type of care. They didn't go well. It didn't go well. They were angry. Yeah, it didn't go well. But I but again, I I still by what I said because I know the type of doctor I am. I'm not spending five minutes with my patients, and I try to connect on a level that's personal. Tell me

what your Thanksgiving plans are, tell me you know? Um And like I saw patients, it's more ning who She's had three deaths, three family depths in a very short period of time. And I said to her, are you in grief counseling? Have you thought about it? And I said to her, when my dad died in I got

in grief counseling and so and people. Even before I was on TV, people heard about my husband, my children, because again, it's a whole human connection that we should be having and you shouldn't just think of me as some sterile person out there. I don't wear a white coat in the office because I don't want the stigma that someone might place on me. I don't want you to come in and have high blood pressure because you're anxious about coming to see me. That's not what I

want our relationship to be based on. Well, we appreciate you, doctor Simone. You're very unique. That is absolutely for sure. You're unique as a doctor, unique to be a doctor who is also on tv UM and you know you.

I think there's so much listening to you. It's very clear that and you said you're a teacher that at some point to me in your future, you're gonna be in front of classrooms around the world trying to help people learn how to treat patients better UM and how to you know, really, like you said, take accountability for yourself and your health. I think that message is important a lot of people. And like I said, when you first said it, I was triggered, like, oh boy, we're

always being told to take accountability. But after I listened to you, I know what you're saying is true. We do have to be responsible for our We have to do our part is basically, and we can't expect somebody else. And I tell my patients when your blood pressure is guy high, and I tell you to leave here and go straight to the hospital, don't run to the walmart because you're gonna piss me off. And I cannot care more about you than you care about yourself. And that's

how I talk to them. And you know, some patients are gonna love my personality and some people are gonna be like, oh I can't. I don't like her. As long as you know that you come from a place of love and you're doing it genuinely and you care about them, you know, I say the same thing. I'm not for everybody, but I know that if for you,

when you get it, you got it. So we just want to say for the work that you do, for your energy, you know, for what you came to the show, what you want of our friends now, so we're gonna definitely have you up here. Then continue to be great queen, and you know we love what you represent and you all keep doing your thing. Um, it's amazing to watch. UM. Sometimes it inspires me and makes me want to be

more active, UM and at least doing my part. I want to say that one year I was so caught up, that was the year of uh, George Floor Briana Taylor, that I went to the training to be a poll worker at at the election stations. But again, you know, we fall off the wagon. We don't do We get caught up in our own lives and busy little lives. But it's you are inspiring people every day. So I hope you all just keep doing what you're doing. Well. You inspire us and will inspire you. Thank you, thank you.

So I know I can tell by um, by the way that Dr Simone presents herself how on the show everybody is clashing because she's so confident and she wants to talk about accountability and she's very she's you know, I think we share a little bit of the like um count familiar. She sounds like a little like you know, you know everything. We know everything about it, all right, and but you know, as you said, so long as

it's coming from a place of love. Um, I think it's important and to get the show, because I think the show that's cool, and that's her a platform for her. But in her medical rooms, you know, and her bedside man as she said that to me is what I was most interested in. And I hope that what people take from this conversation is, Yeah, like I said, she came from Nashville. You know, she has worked her way. She had the support of her parents helping her with

her dreams. You know. Willow said something the other day that I thought was so powerful. He's like, if your kids have these sort of you know, wild grandiose ideas, don't shoot them down, right, like, support them because if you support their dreams, you never know where might go. And because of the fact that you know, her father pushed her and said, know, you need to become a

doctor so you can make money. And then her mom invested in her and did whatever it was necess because even though you get financial aid, going to Spellman still costs. It's still expenses all around. It's a penny. And her mom did that despite the fact that her dad left, So you know, it's an it's encouraging and inspirational to know that no matter what, she kept pushing on, you know, and and and pushed her way through, and people supported her, got her all the way to a school that supports

black people important, you know, going to an HVC. You So, by the time she made it what it sounds like to me, by the time she made it to medical school where she did experience racism, she already had embedded in her who she is, you know. So Spellman already gave her a good foundation and she used the rest of it as tools to get to where she is now.

And where she is now is an important place because black women and black men need, uh medical physicians that help you not just with your whatever they're focused on, whether it's you know, your v J J or your head, your ears, your eyes, whatever it is the heart, but also looking at your life holistically. And so you know, the fact that she approaches it from that perspective, I think that's like really really important. It's really really important, No,

it is. It is just you know, like you said, the level of confidence that she has the energy is what got her through all those things. Just listening to the different levels of things that she went through, and she doesn't seem she seemed unscaped. She seemed like she

was prepared. She didn't say when I walked into the room and they said we don't want to see your kind, that it broke or made like she said, okay, I was fine with it, you know, And and she continued to move on whatever it gave, whatever life gave a little limits, she continued to make lemonade. So I love her energy, you know, I love her ability to continue

on like she will. As like explaining her in the room full of dulas, you know, as a doctor, it's like taboo kind of because it's kind of like, even though they're supposed to work together, just don't believe in modern medicine. They don't believe that there's a lot of things that they have in common. So her still standing on her pivot and that I would love to have seen seeking her just like yeah, you know, well, because she's firm and her conviction, she believes what she believes work.

She's educated, So you know, I think she's got a lot of time to talk about it. But part of the issue with the duelas is not so much her as one doctor, but the system that she represents. And so you know, so I get it. I mean that's that's actually a good follow up, Congo. But do they have doctors for male parts? No, there's no doctor, like how we have over g ry and they don't have like the doctor for the male Um, we have the doctor. I don't know exactly what they probably do. I just don't.

We're called like, you know, we just go see the doctor. We gotta go see the doctors to something wrong. Okay, thanks, you know. But on another topic, my my, I don't get it today. It's about something I've seen and we didn't get to talk about on the show yet. And it was one savage. He made a statement and he said, we're talking about Nos this new album and NAS and I believe they were on Clubhouse and you know, no, I just dropped a classic album album that I listened

to is really dope. And over the last couple of years, NAS has constantly dropped projects the King Disease one, two, and three, which I think our stellar pieces of World, along with hit Boy, and you know it's released. So it was a conversation on Clubhouse and he made a statement that just kind of threw me off. I just didn't get it. He said. He said, Nas it's irrelevant. He just has a um consistent? Was it? He said consistent?

He has a he said he's irrelevant, but he as a consistent And I didn't understand how do you get a consistent fan base if you're irrelevant? Right, I didn't. I didn't really understand that, Like what makes what is

the the criteria for irrelevancy? And I hear that a lot of times with a lot of younger artists, and I think we've been taught that and and and I understood it when I was young, right, Because when I was young, seventies eighties, that's when hip hop started, right, So hip hop was a young persons sport, I mean

young person's field. But now hip hop turned fifty this year, So that means that people who were listening to hip hop at at twenty in the seventies are damned seventies some of them or seven need right now you're the same saying, so hip hop is way older. So the journey has spread out and the definition and you know, different um core groups listen to and a lot of us are able to relate more than the people before us was because hip hop was young then it was

just one thing. So as we grew older, we started to adapt different pieces. We took pieces from blues, we took pieces from hip, probably took piece from rock and roll, and we're able to incorporate. And I think that's what NAS has been able to do. He's been able to recreate itself and and even grab younger fans. Like a lot of younger people, my son knows Nas is music, you know what I'm saying that twenty so he's able

to continue to captivate. So I think that this premise of being irrelevant as you become an older artist, it just to me, it doesn't really I don't really get it. I don't understand it. It doesn't really make sense to me. I think we need to, um just kill that. Kill that. Um mind state that because somebody's older than they irrelevant, you know, and they because they don't because they didn't. Actually the word was wrong. The word was wrong. And also it was something else you said that I wanted

to respond to. You said that, um oh, hip hop. You know, it evolved. I think a part of evolution

is that it became much more cultural. If it became fashion, it became food, it became everything, all the things you could think of, But I guess what I could say to which, by the way, I thought I saw somewhere the twenty one Savage basically, Um, you know, when being challenged on his word, he said something else, and I have no idea what it is, but I think he not so much cleaned it up but tried to correct whatever it is that people felt or what he said.

So check that out. But anyway, UM, I think, like if you're even in my own life, like at forty two, I am not irrelevant in any way, but there are younger people coming up behind me that will probably be and they are in many ways they're hot. Like you know,

I think about Tiffany Loften. This is a young lady who if people have to make a decision about like who they're going to call to organize certain things, I would tell them they should if they could get her, they should go with her, because she's got her finger more on the pulse in terms of like student debt and you know, issues that matter to younger people. But Tiffany also calls me every few days so that we can talk through what she's working on. So it's a

yang and yang. I'm not trying to be the older person that stays in the mix forever and and does not allow an evolution of our younger people activists, and you know, we would say the same for artists and otherwise to grow and to come into their own But it doesn't make me irrelevant. What I do understand, though, is this idea that a part of it is your fan your your supporters that have been with you, that will always be with you, which is a strong support base.

But it doesn't mean that you're able necessarily to tap into the younger group of people or those who are sort of coming in. So do youth make you relevant? No, Well, if I don't think it's youth, even though I think youth represents time right, And so what they will say in churches, I've heard past to say, if there are no young people in your congregation, the church is dying because the older people are going to be out the door.

And if you don't have new inn g coming into the church, then it begins to lose sort of it's gravitas, it loses its place, That's what I'm trying to tell you. So that so that means if you if if you gotta, if if if a church has a core fan base of ten and fifteen thousand people in the in the stage there, right, I mean if you got a core fan, So how how could you ever be irrelevant with that kind of fan? If you look at if you look at Reverend Reverend Jakes, right, I don't, I can't. I

don't see the older he gets. I don't see his relevancy diminishing. I don't really see, but I don't. So, so this is what I'm saying. I think the word relevant is wrong and I am unable to find a new word at this time. You know, words is like my thing that I'm always working on. What is the word that I want to say? Um, So, relevance is

not the right terminology. But but even TV Jake's recently installed his daughter, uh Sarah Jake's over women art Thou, which has now changed to I think women evolved, because even he understands that as he gets older, Yes, the members of his church will probably be with him forever, but it will be it will begin to die off

if he does not bring the daughter's energy. I think that's I think that's how you become, that's how you stay well, if you if you're not incorporated, if you're not incorporated the current energy and the current you know, um and things of that nature. If you're not incorporating

those things, then of course you're going to die. But I think if you have the ability to be able to incorporate those things and stay current and those things and attach yourself two things and bring out the newest young artists and see the New York I don't understand the level of how the reason why. I'm only just trying to have grace for the fact that sometimes when we're trying to articulate something we might not have the right language or even understand what it is we're saying.

But when I think about the thought process, right when I try to just come just taking out the word irrelevant, because that's a bad word, because we can say twenty one savage is irrelevant, right, somebody could say that right now, it's right, so everybody, so we go. So I don't think that that word is the right word. But I understand the concept of basically saying your fan base will

be with you. However, you may not be able to tap into the new eighteen seventeen, eighteen nine, twenty year old, which is such a major part of that I don't know if that's true. Because if you if you, if you got if you tap into the nineteen twenty year old at and you do it for two years and you don't hold onto them for two for more than two years, what does that really mean? What? But but but what we're debating here is that I'm telling you

irrelevance is a wrong word. I'm just saying that. Looking beyond that and having a deeper conversation, we know irrelevance is not the right word. But looking beyond that, there is certainly something to the idea that a part of you said it. A part of staying relevant is knowing when your time it to sort of cultivate your base, but make space for other people to come through the pipeline. That actually is a part of maintaining your relevance. So

that's all I was gonna say. With that said, nas is one of my favorite artists, and I think this artists artists, you know, you know, you know how make up words. He's one of my artists. And his album is Dope, Go Get the King Disease three and I don't, I don't. I don't see him dying out in relevance and As long as we continue to have our feet in this soil and pay attention and listen and here, we're never gonna be irrelevant. One savage pay attention man.

If you can do what NAS has done, if you can captivate audience for twenty plus years like NAS has done, you'll never be a relative. I'm not gonna always be right to make a de Mallory is not gonna always be wrong, but we will both always and I mean always, be authentic. Have a happy gobble gobble Thanksgiving. Listen to Street Politicians on the Black Effect Network on I Heart Radio and catch us every single Wednesday for the video version of Street Politicians or I Women dot tv