Tami Simon: Hello, friends. My name’s Tami Simon, and I’m the founder of Sounds True. I want to welcome you to the Sounds True Podcast: Insights at the Edge. I also want to take a moment to introduce you to Sounds True’s new membership community and digital platform. It’s called Sounds True One. Sounds True One features original, premium, transformational docuseries, community events classes to start your day and relax in the evening, special weekly live shows, including a video version of Insights at the Edge with an after-show community question-and-answer session with featured guests. I hope you’ll come join us, explore, come have fun with us, and connect with others. You can learn more at join.soundstrue.com.
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And in advance, thank you for your support. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, my guest is Dr. Melody T. McCloud. Dr. McCloud is an OB/GYN and the founder and medical director of the Atlanta Women’s Healthcare Center. She lectures nationwide on women’s health and has written a new book with Sounds True. It’s called Black Women’s Wellness: Your “I’ve Got This!” Guide to Health, Sex, and Phenomenal Living. Dr. McCloud talks about women that she says are “‘I’ve got this’ women,” women who are groundbreakers. And I have to say, I think she’s one such person. Take a listen.
Dr. McCloud, welcome. Well, right here at the beginning, we can talk about this notion, we’ve got you, I’ve got this. Your book is called: Your “I’ve Got This!” Guide to Health, Sex, and Phenomenal Living. You start out by talking about someone you call, and I’ve got this woman from history, someone I’d never heard about until I started reading Black Women’s Wellness, Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler. Can you introduce us to Dr. Crumpler and why you called her an “‘I’ve got this’ woman” right at the beginning of your book, Black Women’s Wellness?
Melody McCloud: Oh, well, thank you for allowing me. First of all, thank you for having me here this evening, and also I would be happy to talk about Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler. She blazed the trail upon which I and many others now tread. Rebecca Lee, really she was born Rebecca Davis in Delaware, she had an aunt who was a caregiver of people in the community and things like that. I think Rebecca liked to see how her aunt was taking care of people. Rebecca actually left Delaware, went to Boston and became a nurse. The doctors were so impressed with her quality of care, her intelligence, her dedication that they recommended that she apply to medical school. So she did.
She applied to the New England Female Medical College and she was accepted. In fact, Harriet Beecher Stowe helped write a letter of recommendation for her. She was accepted into the school. And upon graduation in 1864—when I give presentations about her, I say that while the Civil War raged in 1864, Rebecca Lee graduated from what is now Boston University School of Medicine. What I find remarkable about her is, not only does she endure those years in the school—again, white colleagues and fellow students—but when the war ended, she courageously did something I don’t think a lot of people would’ve done.
She actually left what she knew in Boston and went to Richmond, Virginia, to treat the recently freed slaves that the white doctors did not want to touch. I just find that remarkable and brave and courageous. And she endured terrible conditions. I’ve done a lot of research on her. She basically sometimes was denied hospital privileges to admit patients. Sometimes her prescriptions were not honored by the pharmacists. One other thing, if I may tell you, is I’ve read that people there would say that the MD behind her name stood for mule driver. Not medical doctor that she earned, but mule driver. But she endured and she stayed there for about a little bit more than three years and went back to Boston, started her practice for women and children’s care. And then she also eventually wrote a book dedicated to women’s health and children’s care.
TS: Amazing. You bring her up right in the beginning, right in the introduction to Black Women’s Wellness. Tell me why you wanted to start on that note.
MM: Well, one, I wanted to honor her as a physician. Secondly, not many people know her story, as you said even. Her story is not in the history books. People can call it CRT [critical race theory] or whatever they want to call it. I think people need to just know more of what our history has been from back in those days. I wanted, as a physician, to honor a physician upon whose path I tread and to tell her story, just to get it out there. Even if no one reads anything else in the book, I said, “Let me at least give honor to Dr. Rebecca Lee.” I was happy to do that. And also, interestingly about her, I did not know about her even, and oddly, I ended up at the same medical school that later became Boston University School of Medicine. That’s where I attended school. I did not know about her really for many, many, many years.
Long story short, I later initiated and exhibited BU Medical about her. And I got a proclamation from the governor, Ralph Northam in Virginia, in 2019 when he was going through his blackface scandal issue that he had going on. I said, “Let me reach out to him and see if he will maybe provide a little salve to the Black community and give some mention to this woman who served that community.” I was able to secure a proclamation from him. And then as a result of all that, someone in Boston realized that Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler did not have a headstone. For 125 years, she had no headstone. The friends in the Hyde Park Library, they secured money, got a headstone, and then I got a story on NBC Nightly News, and that was just wonderful.
TS: Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, a tremendous groundbreaker in her time, and you here, Dr. McCloud, I would say a tremendous groundbreaker in our time. You’ve written the first book on Black Women’s Wellness. Tell me, what do you think is going on that there had never been a book written before this guide focusing specifically on the health issues and health resources for Black women? What came about such that no one had ever done this before until you?
MM: Well, actually, if I may—
TS: Please. Please.
MM: Actually, years ago in the ‘90s, there was a book called Body & Soul that was written by Linda Villarosa, who actually was the executive editor or some title at Essence magazine. That was really the first book geared to Black women in particular. And actually, I was asked to be a medical advisor to that book, so that was like, “Oh my God.” That was good. And then in 2003, I wrote a book, Blessed Health, where I really basically just dealt with… Black women can be very spiritual. We’ll be in church every Sunday and choir rehearsal on Tuesday and Bible study on Wednesday and prayer meeting on Friday and passing out tracts on Saturday. We’ll do this every week, but we won’t go to the doctor one day a year to get our checkups done. That was in 2003.
But I think an issue really has been that… I’m really, again, happy that Sounds True picked up on this particular book at this particular time, especially with COVID and ethnic health disparities coming to the fore. There had been, in my understanding, a feeling in the publishing world that—and you can tell me if this is true or not—that Black people may not read about their health as much. They may not read these type books, but there’s a need for that. That may or may not have been true. I think to some degree maybe, maybe not.
But again, I think COVID brought to the fore of everybody’s mind ethnic health disparities, that there are disparities, there are differences. People do need to pay attention, and Black people need to not only rely on faith and prayer, and still have a hesitancy about seeking medical care. The timing of it was just a perfect segue to now come forward. Sounds True had the vision and even my agent had the vision to say, “This is something that needs to be brought out and needs to be brought to the masses.” That’s what we hope to do.
TS: You start the book by saying, “Let’s look at the state of Black women’s health in the United States today.” Can you share with us what that landscape is like, your understanding of it, the most important metrics we need to understand, the most important statistics? And then also, what do you think is underlying those statistics? Help us understand that.
MM: Oh my goodness, well, there’s so many metrics that Black women don’t have the same successful healthcare outcomes as White women. And in the book, I’m happy to say I really wanted to make sure, because I’ve told people in taking care of patients, I’m not a physician only for Black women, I made sure to include comparative data for everybody. I have Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Native American women, graphs and charts, data from the CDC, Mayo Clinic. I really have a comparative presentation of how one demographic fares compares to the other.
But the fact does remain that for various reasons, Blacks, women and men, we’re talking women primarily, have higher rates of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, even though Native Americans have a high diabetic rate, cancer deaths. Now, White women, let’s say with breast cancer, Whites will get breast cancer more frequently than we do, but we die at higher rates than White women do. Whites get breast cancer more often, a higher incidence of it, but Blacks have a higher incidence of deaths from those cancers. Another issue is, of course, maternal mortality and perinatal mortality. And then there’s the HIV/AIDS crisis, which is still taking lives.
TS: Dr. McCloud, in identifying these issues, you write towards the end of the book, actually, that Black Women’s Wellness was a hard book for you to write, and that these statistics and how Black health statistics are so far off the chart compared to others caused you a deep inquiry. And to help me understand why is this so, tell us what you discovered about the why. Why is this so?
MM: Yes, I did have a hard time. For one, I wrote much of this during the COVID years. Mentally, I think all of us were kind of languishing, as the world is. We were just kind of in this mental fog. But also when I was looking at the data, and I did extensive research on this book a few times over because data changes every day, but it was painful to me, as a Black female, to see that over the years, over the decades, even over the centuries, but even now still, there are these disparities, there are these wide differences, in some cases, for some conditions.
What’s troubling is, and I think I have a reason why this may be, what’s troubling is that even for women with access to medical care and for Black women with means and insurance, even those women still will lag behind when it comes to a successful healthcare outcome. What is the issue? What’s the problem here? Why is this happening? My take on this, and I’ve thought about this for years, is I think it has to do with something that’s in the news right now, some of the psychosocial stress that Black women experience that White women do not experience. We were easily cast aside. Even within the Black race, there’s what we call colorism.
The light-skinned girls are better and more attractive than the girls my color or darker. There’s colorism, that we have low marriage statistics, again, the obesity issues. There are issues that we experience that other people just don’t have. I think those psychosocial stressors that we feel, they can cause physical stress, increase our cortisol, which we know will add to increased heart disease, it adds to diabetes, it can add to obesity. I really think that, to me, that’s a major part of the missing piece. Yes, you may have money, you may have insurance, you may have a doctor right around the corner, but still, even those type women.
Heck, I get followed when I go into a store when I’m just looking at some earrings on a little card for $20, I get followed. I get followed. Sometimes it’s gotten to the point where I walk in this little gift shop or whatever and the store clerk is over there, and I walk in and next thing I know she’s on my rear end. And to the point even sometimes I’ve turned around and said, “Can I help you with something? Are you looking for something? I don’t know what’s in here, but can I help you?” It happens. I’m a physician and I can afford these little $20 pair earrings that I’m looking at on this little card here. We feel that.
I think a lot of people don’t realize that this is something that happens every day. It’s ever before us that we have to deal with that unspoken suspicion and look and worry and concern that people who are not people of color don’t have to go through. That stress every day, again, affects your cortisol and other stress hormones, and I think that plays a role in getting these other conditions that we are more prone to suffer from.
TS: You introduced this term the “rejection connection.”
MM: Yes.
TS: When I heard that, I was thinking that you were referring to how Black women are treated when they go to get medical help, that there’s an unconscious bias, like the way you were describing being treated in the store looking at a $20 pair of earrings. That also when Black women go to a doctor, go to get medical aid, that they’re also not being given the same kind of words like nourishing connection, genuine connection, this phrase “rejection connection.” Can you describe that?
MM: Yes. I actually created a chart. In the book, we’ve minimized it a bit, this may not show well, but I actually created this kind of chart of multicolored just different things. I titled this Societal Stress and Black Women’s Health: The Rejection Connection, and I listed these things where we as Black women do feel rejected and are rejected. Again, colorism. I think to the lyrics that we have nowadays. We’ve gone from “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” and “My Cherie Amour” to all kinds of names I won’t even say here today. Those lyrics, Don Imus years ago said, it’s OK to call—he called some Black women nappy headed hos. Those little things that come at us that people say.
Our beauty has been rejected. I don’t have to bake in the sun to get some color, but yet my natural color—what is it about color when it comes to skin that’s so bad? But yet color is so good in everything else. What’s better for you white bread or brown bread, dark chocolate or milk chocolate? Flowers, beautiful flowers and color and art. Color is so wonderful in everything except when it comes to skin color. Even in the Black community, again, like I said, colorism. Years ago, Blacks were not accepted if their skin was darker than a paper bag. That’s something that if you were darker than a paper bag, you’re not a good woman, you’re not loving. So there are all these little issues.
And the imaging that we see is a negative, it’s a rejection. You look like that, so you can’t be a part of this crowd. And then there’s the crab barrel syndrome, which happens in every—I got to keep you down because I got to get up. I can’t have you go up because no, I’m going to crawl over you crabs in a barrel. And that can happen in any demographic, truly. But that goes back to today. So all those things I call, those are the causative factors and they cause stress. And that constant denigration, that constant stress leads to these conditions.
And also, one more thing too is now there’s an inequity of education when it comes to Black women and Black men. Black women right now are soaring when it comes to education, entrepreneurship, starting businesses. And we’re not finding that the same with Black men, unfortunately. And so there’s this educational gap, there’s an income gap. And sometimes we are seen as being assertive when really we’re just trying to do what White women do, but we have to kind of push a little harder to be seen as being equal. And I’ve experienced that, just—yeah.
TS: Okay. So in reading Black Women’s Wellness, I pulled out a couple of the statistics that really stuck out to me. That Black women have the highest mortality rate from heart disease of all American women. Black women are twice as likely as Whites to be diagnosed with diabetes.
MM: Yes.
TS: Infant mortality rates in Black women are more than twice that of Whites and Asians. This is just a sampling from the beginning of the book. And when I hear you talk about the psychosocial issues and the impact of the stress that comes from racism, from discrimination, from unconscious bias, what I wonder is how you’re able, because you look at this quite rigorously, to identify how much is a factor from this rejection connection and what are other factors, factors of genetics, factors of not having as this time medical parity, equal access? You said ethnic health disparities equal access to medical care. How do you identify what percentage each of these things is operating on to impact these statistics? How do you think about that?
MM: Oh, that’s a tough question because I don’t know how to put a number on the psychosocial factor. I don’t know, what number is that when it comes to those? That pie chart you just gave me, what percentage of all that? Can we put a number on that? I don’t have that number. I really don’t have that particular number, but I just think, like I said, that piece has been left out of the pie chart. I think a lot of people have always just said, “Oh yes, it’s because we don’t have access to care. Oh, it’s because we don’t have insurance.” And I’m saying even if we do, and this is a fact, even for those who do, there’s something else. So what else might that be? So I’m just trying to bring attention that this might be the missing piece that we need to put a little wedge in the pie chart for and to look at that.
TS: It’s such an important piece for us to address as people of conscience and as a collective. And here in the Sounds True audience, a lot of our audience are White women and White men who deeply care about equity and justice. What would you suggest, how we can be advocates, how we can help resolve these issues of unconscious bias that are operating within the medical system? We’re looking for guidance of how we can do this in the right way, an effective way with the right spirit, the right tone.
MM: Well, I think the first thing that everybody can do, White or whatever, is get a copy of this book because I’ve put a lot of that information in there so that you can even become more aware of the things that we’re talking about tonight. I think when you see some of the graphs in there—again, I have data for everybody, Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Native. When you even just look at the graphs, even if you don’t read a word, if you just flip the pages and see some of the graphs. And Sounds True, I will say, did a beautiful job. The book is beautiful. And the graphs are color and they just stand out. They pop. So I would say start with that because I’ve done the research and if you really want to learn, just really get a copy. And Whites can get a copy too, because the data is there about you as well, or whatever your ethnic background is.
I think to the engage in conversations with Black people, sometimes have some little conversation groups or little societal groups or church groups, if they’re health fairs going on, pay attention to that. If you are in a church or whatever, try to make sure you incorporate people in any kind of health initiatives that you have. I think another thing too, there has to be a level of trust. Again, there is still some distrust of Blacks towards Whites in the medical field. And again, that goes back to the Tuskegee experiment. But we’re trying to tell people, “Listen, yes, that happened, but as more and more Blacks enter the medical workforce, become physicians—which we need a whole lot more of—we are finding that people are, again, paying more attention to their health.” So I would encourage anyone, again, get the book because the data is there.
I’ve done the research on everybody. The data is there, and it will give you a good starting point of seeing what the disparities are like and hearing about what I’m saying. I even have a chapter on the effect of racism on our mental health. So I get into all that in the book. And reach out. Sometimes we’re so segregated, not only in church on Sunday mornings, but I look at people’s photographs and sometimes there are no people of color in there. When I throw a party, I have mixed audiences in my home. I have friends from different backgrounds. So look at your circle, widen your circle, things like that I would encourage. We need to begin to be one as a human race and not be so into our corners, which right now in the society, a lot of people, we’re all in our corners.
TS: What do you think about specifically advocating within the medical field for Black women’s health?
MM: Well, I think in the medical field, physicians even need to be more aware of these disparities. And it’s been reported across the board. When Blacks report to an emergency room, let’s say they’re having chest pain, their pain is not taken as seriously as other people. They may not be offered the same recommendation for lab tests or procedures to be done. And that’s been talked about a lot within the medical community. The discussions are growing. We’re not quite there yet. And again, getting more Blacks in the medical field would help, but those conversations are happening in physicians communications, in the nursing staff, in the hospitals to be more sensitive, more aware, and not be so dismissive. Because that it is an unconscious bias that happens and it’s being worked on, but we still have a long way to go to rectify that. And again, getting more of us in those fields who have that awareness will help as well.
TS: Now, Dr. McCloud, I want to talk a little bit more about you personally at a very young age. At 17, you knew you wanted to be an OBGYN. What inspired you at that age?
MM: Well, actually, that particular thing happened because of my health class and my becoming a Christian. I’ll get to that phase. But I think just as Rebecca Lee was a trailblazer, I had the good fortune and the blessing when I was a little girl that I actually had a Black female pediatrician, Dr. Doris Wethers, no A. Dr. Doris Wethers was my pediatrician, a Black female. And I used to love to go to her office as a little girl and smell the alcohol in the air, not drinking alcohol, but rubbing alcohol. I used to love the smell of alcohol in there. I don’t know why. But also I would hear that she helped people feel better. I don’t know, maybe parents or the parents were talking to another parent, “Oh yeah, my son feels better,” or whatever. And I used to love to go to her office, and I really think that that had an influence on me at an early age.
And then when I got to high school, it was around the same time that I became a Christian. And I think when I learned about health and the sex stuff, and I’m like, “Wait a minute, you mean to tell me a sperm and an egg get together and you make a baby?” I was just freaking out about that. “Oh my God, seriously?” And that was a miracle, and I felt I wanted to be a part of that. So when I was in a little debutantes ball, I didn’t put physician, I actually put that I wanted to be an obstetrician gynecologist. And that was a big step because my history teacher, I remember very clearly, and again, talking about things that people say that could leave an impact on your mind, I remember my history teacher—Joan Stacks was her name. She was the history teacher and the vice principal of my Catholic high school.
I remember at the end of a PTA meeting that I was standing right there with my mother. She told my mother, “Make sure she takes typing because Black people don’t become doctors.” But fortunately, I knew better than that, because I already had Dr. Wethers. So that speaks to also, if you can see it, you can believe it more. And I could see, “Okay, then that’s not true.” I knew that wasn’t true, but yet I also had to, kind of in my mind, not hold on to what she said, but just look at what Dr. Wethers has shown me in reality. So that was my journey. But yeah, I wanted to be an OBGYN, mainly because OBGYN, to me, is mostly a happy field. I knew I wanted to operate.
Also, you get to see the babies, you don’t get to take care of them, but you get to see the little babies. So it was a little bit of pediatrics. It was definitely surgery. Mostly a happy field. Sometimes you have your miscarriages, you have your stillbirths, you have your cancers. But basically, and also too, I noticed I wanted to treat you and get you well. Now that I’m older, I realize internal medicine doctors are important because there are chronic illnesses, there are chronic diseases. But I didn’t want that. I wanted you come to me, I want to treat you and get you well. I don’t want you coming back in a month so I can recheck the same condition over. I want you to treat you and get you well. And I wanted to operate. So that’s why I loved OBGYN. And it was just all-encompassing surgery, sisterhood kind of, see the babies and get you better, get you well.
TS: Now you mentioned this history teacher and how painful, scarring, damaging—
MM: Still. When I tell that story, it’s still—really? That she would put that in to my mother. She said it to my mother, but I was standing right there. But I still remember, and I still can remember how I felt. It stung.
TS: Yeah, no, I feel angry. I felt angry hearing the story, angry and sad, both.
MM: Yeah, it stung.
TS: In reading Black Women’s Wellness, you also talked about how there were naysayers later in your life when you set out to build your own clinic. You could have gotten a job somewhere working for someone else. And you were like, “No, I am going to build a clinic.” And I’m curious to know more about your inner process of when there were naysayers and how you had the inner confidence to stick with your sense of calling.
MM: Well, that’s a good question because I’ve been dealing with that in the last few years because I don’t know how I did what I did. I never had any—I didn’t know any of my grandparents. I had an absentee father who I later found and met when I was 49. My mother had some issues that I later, in fact, had to get an attorney on her about. It was just really not good. So I really had to—and yes, I’ve discussed this with the counselor years ago. How did I do this? How did I stay focused and not let all this stuff affect me? Again, I relied a lot on my faith. My pastor at the time, he was supportive and helped me out a bit. But I don’t know, I think God just blessed me with some mental fortitude for which I’m grateful.
But yeah, when I was finishing up my residency, I was offered to join some practices, but I had always wanted to hang out my own shingle. And so I did. In fact, my very first day, I had two patients. I had one at 9:30 in the morning and one at 3:00, and I was so happy. That schedule didn’t last too long, but I just kind of felt I wanted to do that. And then later on, the practice grew so well. And as a friend said, my life has touched history. Not only did I have a Black female pediatrician who was a pioneer in her own right in New York City, I went to the same school that Rebecca Lee went to. My pastor in New York, Reverend Wyatt T. Walker, he worked with Martin Luther King Jr. He was his executive administrator assistant. I came here to Atlanta. I’ve taken care of civil rights matriarchs, Lillian Lewis, John Lewis’ wife, and Juanita Abernathy, I live with their grandchild. So I’ve had this come to me and it’s just kind of a blessing that this has happened.
So I don’t know, I just guess I was just given a fortitude and a strength to stay focused. It hasn’t been easy. And then, yeah, I my practice grew so well that I actually bought some land and had hired an architect and a contractor, and I built a bigger property. And some people were like, “Oh, why is she doing that?” Then later on, I noticed they did that. I even had a doctor name her practice after mine, which was a little… But I didn’t have time to deal with that. I was busy with my practice.
TS: Now, I also have heard that you’re a poet. And I’m curious how your poetic time, poetic writing and reflections, inform your work as a medical doctor?
MM: Oh, yeah. I love poetry. I think poetry’s great, and some people call it a lost art, but I think poetry’s wonderful. In fact, I put a little self-published book together called Melodies of the Heart: Poems of Life and Love. It’s pretty. It’s pretty clever. Poetry just really is a way for me to just let stuff out. In fact, oh, I should have put it here with me, but one of the first poems in my little ebook now about Melodies of the Heart is “The Words of a Poet.” And it’s like it’s therapy cheap. It’s just something, it gives a way of therapy, cheap therapy. It’s a way to express yourself. It just comes from the heart. And in medicine…
I actually have a poem called “The Physician’s Heart,” where I talk about the honor as a physician we feel that you would come to me for me to give you care is just such, I just think that’s just such an honor. You can lose your house and your car and whatever, but for someone to come to you and entrust their very being to you for you to take care of them, that just moves me. That probably didn’t answer your question, but I love poetry and I read it and write it and love listening to it from other people.
TS: Is there a poem that’s alive in you, a part of one of your poems that’s alive for you right now you could share with us?
MM: Oh my. I’ve got so many. And it’s funny, I thought about putting my little poetry book here next to me, but I won’t get up and go get it now. But, oh goodness.
TS: Maybe just a line or two.
MM: Okay. Well, from that one, if I can remember—I remember some other poems though. I remember the poem about the guy who broke my heart, but we won’t get into that. He regrets it now, so that’s one of my favorite poems. But “the words of a poem that I put when one writes, they’re midnight truths, poems are midnight truths to the souls delight.” So I’ll just leave it at that. When you write, it’s in the stillness of your midnights, you can kind of pour this stuff out. So the words of a poet, when one writes, are midnight truths to the souls delight.
TS: Beautiful. All right. I want to dig more into Black Women’s Wellness. This “I’ve got you” guide from our so capable Dr. Melody T. McCloud. And in the first part of the book, you talk about the five biggest diseases that Black women are challenged by, suffer from in inordinate proportions. And I wonder if you could talk about each one and share with us some insights, what we need to understand about the disproportionate suffering of Black women. And also what we need to understand about our own health in relationship to these illnesses. So I wonder if we could do that. And let’s start with the first one you mentioned, which is heart disease.
MM: Yes, heart disease is actually the killer, the most of everybody. That’s the number one killer of everybody. So in that part, it’s universal. But yes, we suffer from strokes and die from strokes at a higher rate. And again, heart disease, whether it’s heart attacks, strokes, emboli, pulmonary emboli. And that again, also ties in with the obesity. I think too, I’m really big on personal responsibility even for all of these things that we’re going to get into, especially with maternal mortality and all that. With heart disease, I really try to encourage people to just be diligent of what your diet is all about, exercise is important. And again, this is for everybody. And that’s why I say the book really is for everybody because the information applies to all of us.
It’s just that I want to bring attention to the fact that the numbers are worse for Blacks because no other physician author in years has really specifically addressed this demographic. And that’s why I’m happy Sounds True gave me the opportunity to do that with this book. Because we might get a line maybe about ethnic disparities, but to get a paragraph is really unheard of in recent years. And to have a book, it just hasn’t been. So paying attention to your blood pressure. We call high blood pressure the silent killer. And again, with this stress on us, with weight on us, with the psychosocial stressors affecting us, that can cause your blood pressure to go up. And if you’re not being diligent about that, who knows, you would have a hypertensive episode and have a stroke, have a cerebral hemorrhage and die. So that’s a factor.
Obesity, again, is a factor. The extra weight puts strain on your heart. Can lead to diabetes, type two diabetes, lead to cancers. A lot of cancers are obesity related. So all of those things. Yeah, we’re just at high risk of all of those major diseases. And also too, like I mentioned earlier, cancer deaths. Unfortunately, my office manager died in 2018 from pancreatic cancer. And I have to admit, I was a little mad at her about it because she didn’t give herself the disease, but she knew better and she didn’t follow through. And I’m like—
TS: What do you mean she knew better, Dr. McCloud?
MM: Her name was Martha and I have her story in the book. In fact, there’s a GoFundMe page she started just two weeks before she passed or something. Martha was a smart woman, educated, wonderful businesswoman. But in January of 2018, she actually had some symptoms. She did go to the doctor. And the doctor, God bless this man, he actually told her, he said, “I think this is pancreatic cancer.” And they did a biopsy. The biopsy came back negative. But he told her, he said, “Okay, pancreatic cancer can be really funky. I want you to come back in a month and we’re going to check this again.” But she was feeling better and she was just going to pray it away, which Black women are, “I’m just going to pray this. I’m not claiming it.” Okay, that’s the thing that we say, “Oh, I’m not claiming that. I’m not claiming I have hypertension. I’m not claiming I have diabetes. I’m not going to put that on me.”
It’s like if you speak it into existence, so if you don’t speak it’s not going to happen. So she, “No, I prayed that away.” And she didn’t tell me about this until April. And I told her, I said, “Martha, you need to go back and get that biopsy.” Long story short, later that year, she had some little mini strokes and she didn’t tell the doctors at that hospital about the suspicion for the pancreatic cancer, and they didn’t pick up on it. And then in October 9, 2018, she had lost all this weight, she went in and sure enough, they biopsied her and she had stage four pancreatic. So she went from pre-diagnosis officially to being stage four, and she died six weeks later. So my thing is, I wish she had done what she was told to do.
And God bless that doctor. He was very astute. He saw the signs. And if she had gone back, would she still be living today? Maybe not. But she could have lived longer than those few weeks that she had if she had just done the right thing. And she knew to follow through. She knew that. But fear, and again, reliance on faith, which we do, but I’m saying, God puts us here to help us one to another, and doctors are here to be helpers to the population. So use us. Let us be a vehicle to help you in getting your health care. We’re not here to hurt you. We’re here to help you. So I was just upset with her that she didn’t, as others were, that she should have just gone back and she didn’t.
TS: You write to all of us that one of your take-home messages is to be good stewards of your health, that you want each one of us to be good stewards of our health. And I’m curious how you would define that, what that means to you to be a good steward of our health, each one of us?
MM: Yeah, everybody. And in fact, in the book, I begin with a family checkoff sheet to check your family history to see what conditions run in your family. There’s a box there for mother, father, sister, brothers, uncles, aunts, cousins, and child. And then the diseases are listed on the side. So I start the book with that, just kind of check off who has what in your family. So one is to know your family history. And even sometimes at family reunions, people now have a little session where they, “Okay, let’s go over this family.” In fact, years ago I did write a book, brought this one years ago, I did a little self-published thing called The Health Diary for Women of Color.
And it was a checkoff thing where people can kind of check off their own family. And actually some people bought that for their family reunion. So that’s one thing. Know your family history, know what risks run in the family. Jews may have certain diseases, Blacks may have certain diseases other people have. So know your family history is important. Two, yes, be a good steward, be mindful of your diet, be mindful of your weight, don’t be afraid to go to the doctor, get your checkup. Granted that the timing of when to get a checkup is changed because it used to be always every year, every year, every year, which I’m still a proponent of. But the American College of OBGYN has changed some things and they’re trying to decrease testing on some things. But based on your family history, if you know your family has certain diseases, go get checked more regularly, go talk to your doctor.
Breast cancers, if there’s a family history, you may want to start getting your mammograms sooner than what’s recommended if there’s colon cancer in your family again. So knowing your family history is really, really key. And also pay attention to yourself. And in fact, in the back of the book I have for you to take time to take stock of yourself. There’s a whole checklist for you to spend to look at yourself, look at your skin. Do you see any moles changing? Are you sleeping at night? Sleep is real important. Your weight isn’t good. Do you have joint issues and breast mass? Do you do your breast self-exams? Do you get your mammograms regularly? Do you get your colonoscopies sometimes? So there are things that we can do. And even if you don’t have money, a lot of times there are free clinics. People need to make use of it. Sometimes we don’t. So there are resources out there. I just want people to be a good steward of your person because this is all you really, really have is who you are.
TS: Now, Dr. McCloud, I asked you about these top five conditions that disproportionately affect Black women and lead to death. And you mentioned, we talked about already heart disease, diabetes, obesity, maternal and infant mortality, and HIV/AIDS. I didn’t know about that. HIV/AIDS as one of the top big five. Can you tell me more about that?
MM: Yes. And there may be a reason why you may not know about that as much. Right now, and for a while, Black women are the fastest growing demographic of new HIV/AIDS cases. And why is that? And why has it been? It’s because purely heterosexual women are having sex with men who go both ways. And the men aren’t telling the women, “Look, I go both ways. This is how it is.” Especially Black men. And I give data in here, which is just shocking and stunning. And the CDC for a while was hesitant to put it out there because they didn’t want to stigmatize the community. But I and some other doctors, I used to be on an advisory board to CDC advisory council, we had to say, listen, that’s not stigmatizing. Don’t we tell people who are obese that you are at higher risk of type two diabetes, stroke, heart attack. Don’t we tell smokers, if you keep smoking, you are at higher risk of lung cancer? We tell people who play tennis, you’re at high risk of getting tennis elbow.
So that’s not stigmatizing, that’s informing, that’s educating. And then finally, the CDC came out and put it out there that yes, men who have sex with men are the main reason why there’s so much HIV and AIDS, because not only are they getting HIV and AIDS, but they are also getting related STDs. And so when you have these purely heterosexual women thinking they’re with their guy thinking he’s not only monogamous, but that he’s purely hetero and he really isn’t, he’s bisexual. So they’re having sex with these men who are bi, and that’s how they’re getting high numbers of HIV and AIDS. So that whole “down low” issue is what it’s called.
- Hetero women are having sex with “down low” men and they’re getting infected. And that’s why the HIV/AIDS rate is so disproportionately high in Black women. I tell people, it’s not that we are genetically predispositioned to have higher rates of HIV and AIDS. That’s a personal conduct thing. That’s a thing of knowing your numbers. And lesbian women, they don’t have that issue because they’re not having sex with “down low” men. So that’s why lesbians, they don’t have to worry about—and I actually, in the book, in the HIV section, I have that all broken down of that. I have men-to-men, in the Blacks, Whites, Asians. And also woman-to-woman, the numbers for HIV and AIDS is just practically nil.
And one other problem too, we’re finding too in the Black community more than others, is we are seeing HIV/AIDS in 13- and 14-year-old boys. Why is that? One key reason and probably the key reason is because 70% of babies born to Black women are born to single mothers, so you have these women having these children without a husband. And what’s happening is they may have a boyfriend come in, a serial boyfriend, and unfortunately, a lot of these men are molesting these young boys. And that’s why we have found some unfortunate numbers of HIV/AIDS in 13- and 14-year-old males. So again, I tell people, just know who you’re getting with, check it out. You don’t have to jump on the first thing that comes along, just be careful and take it easy and use precaution. So no, lesbians don’t have that issue. It’s hetero women engaging with men who don’t tell them what’s going on. And now White men will tell it more than a Black man will. So that’s a big crisis in Black men.
TS: Why is that, do you suppose?
MM: Well, despite the numbers, homosexuality in the Black community is still not favored even though the numbers are increasing. So they just don’t want to say. They just don’t want to say. They don’t say it. So that falls on the woman then, to just really take her time and don’t be jumping along the first thing that comes along. You’ve got to be careful about that. And I live in Atlanta and there’s a very large population here and high numbers of HIV/AIDS, especially in certain communities down by the AU Center, which is where Morehouse and Spelman and Southwest Atlanta is. It’s a very high HIV population there. And people, they have to just stop for a little bit and check out who you’re going to be with because you don’t know what they’re doing. They could be not being honest with you.
TS: Dr. McLeod is underscoring the health benefits of being a monogamous lesbian right here.
MM: Oh no, I did not say that.
TS: I’m just kidding with you. I’m just kidding. I’m just joking with you. But I am curious to know, when we talk about—
MM: That is one benefit that lesbians have.
TS: It’s a health benefit.
MM: You don’t get HIV and AIDS like we heteros do.
TS: No, I know, I’m just joking. But I am curious to know when it comes to genetic factors, because we haven’t really addressed that. What are the genetic risks that Black women face related to their health?
MM: Genetics. Well, there are certain diseases, again, like sickle cell anemia. Some people may have multiple sclerosis, some people may notice they have more higher incidence of that. And one thing that’s happened too is we are having a lot of research now about genetic advances in care, which is really, really good and immunotherapy and stuff like that. But that’s again, where your family comes in to be important. Know what the genetics are in your family. Colon cancer, Lynch syndrome, there’s a certain condition with colon cancer patients where one person in the family may have this particular condition in their colon called a Lynch syndrome. And that’s really important to find out: is that something you have? So you have to be tested for that. So again, that goes back to family history. Know your history and follow up with anything that pops up abnormal. Because you can catch some things early, if you’re proactive.
TS: OK, Dr. McCloud, I just have two final questions for you. One is that there was a line towards the beginning of Black Women’s Wellness where you write, “The goal isn’t to be like White women, it’s to be healthier Black women.” And I wanted to understand what you meant by that.
MM: Well, really just what it says, that we’re not trying to be like White women. I just want you Black women to pay more attention to your health, focus on what you need to do, focus on your family and be healthier than what we’ve been. Because we need to change the numbers. We need to turn this around. We need to stop dying from conditions that other people, White women in particular are surviving, Asian women in particular are surviving. And we can do it. I really believe that we can do it. I guess even for myself, I had to have some belief in myself, even though sometimes I didn’t feel I did. But you have to believe that we can do this. And there are resources out there.
Again, there are community clinics. Sometimes, going back to the whole faith church thing, a Black church might have a big old concert and the church is packed to the gills, but you have a health fair and you’d be lucky if you get 50 people there. So that’s changing. And now too, with the book, and again, I’m grateful for the book, now there’s a book of knowledge out there. So again, I’m really hoping, and if anyone’s in the media who’s listening to this, help me, help us get this book out there so people will know that it’s out there. I thought of something last night this morning at three o’clock in the morning, because I’m not sleeping because I’m getting nervous about the book. I really am.
But I thought about when a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it’s still an impact, a negative on the earth per se. But if a book is out there and no one knows about it—we need to make an impact in the numbers that are poor. And so there’s a book out there now that can make a positive impact, but people need to know about it. So we have a book, but if no one hears it, does that mean there’s no book out there? There is one now. And we need to make a positive impact to make a change, to bring forth healthier Black women to society to at least bring us up to a point of equity.
TS: Which brings me to my final question. When you project yourself out into the future and you see the ripple effects of a book like Black Women’s Wellness can have in the world, the ripple effects of a conversation like this that ripples out and ripples out and ripples out, now we’re out, we’re 10 years out, we’re 20 years out, we’re 30 years out, what is the vision of possibility that you see? What are you holding?
MM: Oh, I would love it if we could just see the numbers come down. If we could see one, let’s say cancer. Cancer rates for some conditions are dropping overall because people are paying more attention. So I would love to see that Black women aren’t dying from cancers as much as we are. I would love to see that we aren’t having strokes at the rate that we are. I would love to see that women who get pregnant aren’t dying from with maternal mortality issues or losing babies, perinatal mortality.
I would love that the numbers, just that our rate, when you see these graphs in this chart and you see Black up here and Whites here and Asians here, the bar graph, I would love it where we’ve come down, even if these don’t go up. I want to see the rates lower where we’re just off to a healthier start. Because also, women are mostly are the caregivers of the family. So changing the health of Black women can affect the health of her husband and her children. Because she’s really basically taking care. She’s the one, “Come on honey, you need to go to the doctor.” Or she’s the one who takes the kids to the doctor. So changing the health of Black women can change that of her family and future generations.
TS: I’ve been speaking with Dr. Melody T. McCloud, author of the new book, Black Women’s Wellness: Your “I’ve Got This” Guide to Health, Sex, and Phenomenal Living. And if you’d like to watch Insights at the Edge on video and participate in after the show Q& A conversations with featured presenters and have the chance to ask your questions, come join us on Sounds True One, a new membership community that features premium shows, live classes, and community events. Let’s learn and grow together. Come join us at join.soundstrue.com. Sounds True: waking up the world.
