Dr. Julianne Adams Birt: Advocating for Women's Health

Transcript: The most important thing is to be an advocate. To be an advocate, not only for yourselves, and like I said, being an entrepreneur, owning my own practice. Of course, I’m speaking up for my practice. But speaking up for each and every patient. I’ll tell you, when I first moved into that community where my practice is based, I spent a lot of time and this is not even GYN world, I spent a lot of time educating my colleagues around me.  And I’ll give you the best example: All of my patients who are African American who happen to be 45, I would say, hey, has your primary care doctor referred you for a colonoscopy? And they’d say well no, I was told 50 All the advertisements said 50. All the PSAs  said 50. And when I would give them that referral, I met with a few, not only the primary care Doc’s in my community, but that gastroenterologist in my community, and they were saying, Well, Dr. Birt, you know, she’s not 50, and she does have a family history. And so I really feel good that in the last 12 years, I’ve been able to help change the mindset of those doctors because now they have a whole process, where they start fighting a good fight and they try to get their patients approved when the insurance companies tell them no. So I would say to the younger generation, continue to speak up when you know something and know that it’s in the best interests of your patient, speak up and be an advocate.