Racism in the Doctor's Office

Show Transcript

Racism in the Doctor's Office?

[00:00:00] Bob Gatty: A recent national survey indicates that many Black, Hispanic, and other minority individuals experience some form of discrimination or racism when they seek health care, since 63. 9 percent of active physicians identify as white, while only 20. 6 percent are Asian, 6. 9 percent Hispanic, and only 5. 7 percent identify as Black or African American. Could this be a reason why racism may be experienced in a doctor's office? Stay with us. 

[00:00:36] Today, I'm happy to welcome Dr. Sanlare Gordon to our podcast. Dr. Gordon is a staff physician at Pandia Health, the only woman founded and woman led birth control delivery service, and is board certified in obstetrics and gynecology. She joined the Pandia Health Team because she believes that every woman should have access to birth control options without the added worry of keeping up with refills.

[00:01:06] Doctor Gordon, welcome to the Lean to the Left podcast. Thanks for joining us. 

[00:01:10] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: Thank you. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Thank you for the invitation. 

[00:01:13] Bob Gatty: Yeah, it's my pleasure. Now tell us about your work as a physician and about Pandia Health. That's an online telemedicine service, right?

[00:01:23] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: It is. So I am a board certified OBGYN or obstetrician gynecologist. I am the doctor for women from, like adolescent all the way until menopause and post menopause and beyond. Most people know me as, The person who delivers babies, but I do so much more, but of course that's the, most fun part of being an OBGYN, unless you're really tired of your uterus, then you're very excited to see me to have a hysterectomy to remove it.

[00:01:51] But I practiced traditional, come see me in the office medicine for seven years out here on the Eastern shore in Maryland. Enjoyed the practice, had a great time. And just due to different things our office decided to close. And so at that time, I just tried to figure out what in the world am I going to do with my life?

[00:02:10] Looked at Starbucks and Target to see what their benefits plans were. I married a teacher. That's what I tell everybody. Marry a teacher. You get all the good benefits. So I was like, okay, fine. I'll keep being a doctor. But then I fell in love with being a locums doc. So that's a travel doc.

[00:02:26] Bob Gatty: Keep being a doctor instead of working at Starbucks. 

[00:02:30] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: Like the benefits are amazing. And I don't even like coffee, but I saw the benefits. So now I travel all over the United States as a travel doc and I am a Small town girl grew up in small town Orangeburg, South Carolina, and that's already small by itself.

[00:02:48] And then I live all the way out in the country. So even away from what we call the town or the city. So grew up there. And so as a travel doc, my, specialty or my thing, my niche is going to all of these beautiful rural towns in states that I have never been to just to, serve a purpose to these women who deserve really good obstetrical and gynecologic care.

[00:03:09] So that's where I'm at right now. 

[00:03:11] Bob Gatty: Basically, so then you're going to places that don't have local doctors. 

[00:03:17] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: Yes, or they might have only one local doctor that has just been burnt out and needs some help. I see. Or doctors who are going like, they get treated. Sick or maternity leave and things like that.

[00:03:29] Like they basically, I fill a need, but one of the places that I go to, it literally is only one physician that's there and it's a whole lot of babies being born and a whole lot of uteruses that need to be removed. And so I go there about one to two weeks out of the month to help him out. Okay. 

[00:03:44] Bob Gatty: So that guy has a lot of women who are tired of their uteruses, 

[00:03:48] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: Or are overusing it to have babies. 

[00:03:50] Bob Gatty: Oh, okay. All right. All right. How receptive are BIPOC, if we're going to use that shorthand, BIPOC patients to online care? How receptive are they? 

[00:04:04] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: I'm going to be very honest. They love it. They really, truly love it. And do you know when we really realized that this is something that could be utilized in medicine, that good old, Pandemic, that panini, that, that thing, COVID.

[00:04:18] So even at my office, again, I was at that time practicing at my traditional office and the whole world shut down and we just didn't have patients coming into the office. And so one thing that we figured out how can we utilize telemedicine? So we started doing telemedicine. One doc would do telemedicine like a week at a time, two weeks at a time.

[00:04:36] And I've realized that I really loved it. So one of my partners. Old school. I love him. He was my work hubby he is like the true quintessential old school doc. He loved being in the office. He hated telemedicine So I would be like, can I please have your telemedicine week, please So he would give me his telemedicine week and then I would give him my in the office week but what we found was especially in these rural areas is let's be honest a lot of these women that They don't have six figure or salary jobs.

[00:05:04] They have jobs to where if I don't show up, I don't get paid. And so we're now offering them it would be women they're like in their car, like on lunch break and run to the bathroom, like things like that, just to have their visit because where our office was situated for some women, it was an hour drive, so an hour there, an hour back, and if they had children, then they had to find childcare for their children for this drive, but then with telemedicine, they're like.

[00:05:29] I don't have to go anywhere. All I need is my phone. And so we really and truly have found across, across all races, it was great, but in these populations that had high African Americans or Black Americans or, Black people, Hispanics, Asians and things, they loved it because they were just again, The population, if you look at the numbers, it does show that we we make up the majority of jobs that are hourly paid..

[00:05:54] And so again, they appreciate it not having to take off a day or half a day of work to go to the doctor. So it really has been very well received. 

[00:06:03] Bob Gatty: Okay. What sort of, I don't know how to ask this question what sort of care do you provide online? Do you, are you just looking at the person's face, talking to them?

[00:06:17] Or, tell me about how that works. 

[00:06:19] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: So yes, as far as obstetrics and gynecology we know the body parts that I work with, so we definitely don't open up the screen and see Women's privates and things like that. So it is very much so face to face. And so women, if they're pregnant and it really, and truly depends on where they were in their pregnancy.

[00:06:35] And we didn't see their whole pregnancy telemedicine. So we would tell patients like, every two weeks, we do need to see you in the office and you really would have to be like low risk. So meaning that you don't have. Things that we need to check your blood pressure and blood sugar and do blood work get ultrasounds and things like that for it would really be patients to where they would rule themselves into I'm pretty like, low risk. So we'll just ask them the regular questions, baby's moving, any bleeding, any leakage of fluid or anything like that. If everything is fine, okay, we'll see you back in the office next time. As far as gynecologic things, they would call us.

[00:07:07] Our telemedicine would be like for birth control refills to start birth control. They have any abnormal bleeding, we would ask all the questions then. So when they do come into the office, they would already be set up to have an ultrasound done or if any biopsies or anything like that needs to be done.

[00:07:21] So the first would be face to face and just depending on what happened in that meeting whether they ever need to come into the office because again birth control You don't really need to be seen sure, but things like other problem visits then we would say, okay You do need to be seen and we'll see you on this day and we'll set up.

[00:07:38] The online excuse me the in office visit Yeah, 

[00:07:40] Bob Gatty: okay. All right. So let's talk a little bit about why there are not more black, indigenous, and people of color doctors in America. Why is that? 

[00:07:52] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: The true answer is systemic racism, and we're still dealing with systemic racism, because there was absolutely a time to where blacks and Hispanics and indigenous people just weren't even allowed into medical schools.

[00:08:05] Like we just were not allowed into them. And then finally there were medical schools that would allow us to be there, but it wasn't the majority. There will be like, okay, one or two per class. And then. We do now have historically black colleges and universities that do have medical schools.

[00:08:20] So we're talking about Howard, Harry, Drew. Those are some of our medical schools. And now we have a new medical school at Morgan State up in Baltimore that will be opening soon. It's actually a D.O. School. I'm osteopathic physician. So we just didn't, we don't have that many schools to where one, they are HBCUs that are medical schools.

[00:08:40] And then two, the medical schools that are out there. We don't have that many. In my class, we had 160 people. In my class of 160, it was eight black people. And I know that I can name all of them. They're all in my phone. So it's just really and truly not that many of us being actually admitted into the schools.

[00:08:57] It is getting better. They were finding, of course medical school. We're getting more people in positions to where we are seen and we are allowed to go through the admission process are finding that, one of the biggest barriers was or is standardized testing. And again, it has been shown that African Americans minorities don't do well in standardized testing that because we aren't smart, but just because we don't have the resources and we're not being taught for the test. So you are taught the information, but whenever you take a standardized test, they are testing you a certain way. So you have to be taught how to take the test.

[00:09:36] And so now a lot of these schools are not putting as much weight on these standardized testing because before it would be like For the MCAT for medical school if you didn't get this certain score We're not even going to look at your application at all. Like we already have weeded you out, but now it's this well Yeah, you know the MCAT is there but What are they doing in the community?

[00:09:54] Tell me about their entire story. Tell me about the entire person. And so that is opening up the doors more and more for more of us to actually walk through. But in the beginning, it really, and truly was just systematic racism that just shut the door. Like you're not allowed to come into these doors at all.

[00:10:11] Bob Gatty: Where did you go to school? Where'd you get your degree? 

[00:10:14] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: I went to medical school at Edward Villa Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine in Blacksburg, Virginia. Virginia Tech is what everybody knows it as. 

[00:10:22] Bob Gatty: Oh, okay. Go Hokies. Okay. How can the shortage of doctors be changed? How can it be improved? Oh, that's a shortage. How can we get more of them? 

[00:10:35] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: Can we get more? Really and truly. And, like I raised my hand because, I hate to be a person that points out a problem, but, doesn't, find the solution. And really and truly the solution is more of us getting into positions of administration.

[00:10:47] And also being a part of the admission process. A lot of us are just like, you know what, I always wanted to be a doctor and now I'm a doctor and now I'm in the world being a doctor, but we don't go back to these medical schools. We don't go back to these residencies to say, okay, now let me be a part of admitting people into our programs to make sure that the programs actually mirror the patients that we're actually seeing out there that are actually mirroring the program.

[00:11:12] Population that's out there. So really and truly what we do need to do as solving the problems ourselves is going back into these institutions and making sure that we are actually there to be a part of the process of admission. Having a bigger voice to say that, okay. Again we found the standardized testing, doesn't work really well for us.

[00:11:32] Okay, so great. So it's just inserting ourself in the process of admissions to make sure that our voices is being heard versus becoming the doctor and just being like, okay, now I'm out here to serve my people. We, I ain't going to be here forever. I'm not doing this forever. Sure. I'm hoping to win the lottery one day.

[00:11:49] I don't play it, but somehow it's going to happen. Like these positions at some point we're going to retire at some point, like we're going to die. We don't live forever. So we really, and truly need to work harder on making sure that we're bringing in people behind us and putting us in these positions to make sure that we are actually safe.

[00:12:07] And using our voice in these places to where we see racism is actually happening. Not being so afraid to actually say something like speaking up about it really does help. 

[00:12:17] Bob Gatty: How can a shortage of BIPOC doctors, result in racist practices and incorrect diagnoses. 

[00:12:25] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: So again I am a numbers person.

[00:12:27] So recently, within the last few years, research has actually come out to show that as far as African Americans or blacks are better treated by African Americans. And people of the diaspora the black diaspora. And that's really and truly because all races speak their own language.

[00:12:45] Like we really and truly do. So I'm a Southern girl. I'm a Southern, black girl, Orangeburg, South Carolina. And so when I walk into a room and a patient says, I got the sugars or I got pressure, I know exactly what you're saying. I know a hundred percent what you're saying. I have actually had patients to say this in front of my colleagues who aren't black.

[00:13:04] And they're like, What's the sugars? Do you mean you have the shivers? Are you shaking? What does that mean? I'm like, they got diabetes. They got diabetes. The pressure is hypertension. And so we understand the language. We also know, I know what you eating, even though you walk through the door and be like, Oh, doc, I eat very healthy.

[00:13:20] Things like that. I'm like, Oh, you eat collard greens. You're like, yeah, like you eat chicken. Yeah. I eat chicken. It's your chicken fried. Oh, Doc is fried. Tell me about your collard greens. It's made with ham hocks. It is made with ham hocks. So we know the language. So I can tell you off the bat, like I know how to treat you.

[00:13:35] Because I we live the same life. We live the exact same life. Okay. And so I know to tell you, okay, we're gonna have to work on your diet. I know what you perceive as being exercise, but it's probably not true exercise, right? So this is what you actually need to do. . So studies show that, and it goes the same way for Hispanics.

[00:13:52] They know how they eat, they know how they drink, they know what they drink, they know how much activity that they actually do. They know diseases that actually affect their, families and their races a little bit more than an actual Caucasian person. So that's why it's different. Like we speak the same language and there's also a level of just being extremely comfortable.

[00:14:13] Like I am extremely comfortable talking to you about these things because, you might, if you don't live the same social situation that I'm going through, you probably know somebody that does live the same social situations.. So I'm not embarrassed to talk about, my family deepest, darkest secrets. And that just goes for women.

[00:14:29] Let me tell you something. When women get in my four doors, they tell me all their business. And I'm like, what? Bring on the popcorn. But it's just brilliant. 

[00:14:39] Bob Gatty: You said they tell you all their business. 

[00:14:43] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: The business, the secrets, they tell me the neighbor's business. Let me say, if you want to know the gossip, you go find you an old Why don't you 

[00:14:50] Bob Gatty: write a book about all this stuff?

[00:14:52] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: I should. I probably should. I really need to. Yeah, you should. My little old ladies that come in when they're like 80 years old, I know I'm about to know all the business about the entire town. Because they know it, and they're going to tell it. There's a level of just being comfortable. Like I'm just comfortable talking to another black woman.

[00:15:09] I'm very comfortable talking to them. So that's where race actually plays a huge role versus if you take a black woman, a black man or Hispanic woman or a Hispanic man and sit them in front of a white older gentlemen, and they do have issues that are going on, like I'm a gynecologist. So if they do have an issue of abnormal discharge, smelly discharge and things like that, they're embarrassed.

[00:15:31] I don't want to talk about that in front of this older white gentleman, but they don't care about talking about it in front of me. They tell me to smell what it feel like, what it looked like, all the things. So there's a level of just being comfortable because I'm looking at somebody who looks like me.

[00:15:45] So that's another way that like, race actually plays a huge role in healthcare. Because. You're open more. You're telling me more about what's going on with you, which actually helps me diagnose you, manage you, treat you and things like that. Okay. 

[00:16:01] Bob Gatty: What are some of the examples of how African American women might be treated if they go to a white doctor and they feel like, racism is involved?

[00:16:15] What are some examples of some things that might happen? Do you know? 

[00:16:19] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: Okay. So a lot of, unfortunately, a lot of a white person's interactions with black people is what they see on TV. And let's be honest, the way that we are portrayed on TV since the Cosby show, isn't that very positive?

[00:16:35] And so there is There's bias racism, like implicit bias. Sometimes, it, and sometimes you just don't know it. So if you're looking at this person and I'll never, so one story that I can remember is this one patient black woman she had five children and she, when she was speaking to another white physician, and again, I don't think that it was, he was being like, invertedly I'm just being racist towards you, but was like, Questioning her. Oh, you have five children. Are they by the same dad? And when she was just like, yeah, they're by the same dad. And he's totally caught back. Oh my God, they're by the same dad.

[00:17:11] Why would you assume they wouldn't be like, my parents had four children and same parents and things like that. So it's a lot of assumptions that are being made again it's been very well documented that it's that white people don't perceive black pain is the same. Meaning if I come in and say my pain is a 10 out of 10, it's ignored.

[00:17:31] All her pain isn't really a 10 She's over exaggerating for different reasons. She's dramatic. Is she a drug seeker? What do you want opiates? No, I just. You might bang my finger with a hammer. It's a 10 out of 10 pain. Whereas if a white person came in and said, my pain is three out of 10, they're already, offered all kinds of services of let's find out why that pain is that let's like, get diagnostic testing, give her Percocet.

[00:17:54] And I won't even get a Tylenol for a pain. This 10 out of 10 completely ignored. Because my pain is 10 out of 10 after a C section. Complaining of like abdominal pain and things like that. Oh, she's just complaining. She's just complaining. Come to find out I have an internal bleed. And we actually had a woman within the last 10 years, her name is Kira happened to her in California.

[00:18:13] She was complaining about this pain. Her husband was complaining about the pain, looking at vital signs. Nobody saw this woman for several hours. I think it was over 12 hours. When they finally took her to the OR, she had a belly full of blood. She ended up coding and she died. Whereas if somebody just would have paid attention to her pain and her complaints a little bit earlier, a hundred percent she would be here today. 100 percent she would be here today. Black women are dying at a rate of four to five times more than other races when they're pregnant. And in their immediate postpartum, they are dying. This again is very much so it is documented that it is. So it's a lot of perception and a lot of assumption, and a lot of things that are just passed down to this is black behavior. Don't believe their pain or, like their hypertension is just really high because they don't eat right. They don't eat well versus are you going to check their kidneys to see maybe if it's a kidney thing, is it really a cardiovascular issue?

[00:19:08] Issue. Are you just going to blame the fact that I put ham hocks in my collard greens? Yes, I do. But I could also be having hypertension for different reasons. So see me as a person. So it definitely goes into like the treatment of how a black woman is perceived by a white physician. And black people, they know it. Again, they tell you like, whenever I go into my doctor and they don't look like me, I already know a lot of the stuff. And so I make sure to make myself bigger in the room. It's very heartbreaking to hear them say, they'll be like, I'll tell them that, I'm a doctor or, my parents are like, the teachers at the high school.

[00:19:46] So they build themselves up because they feel like when I go in the room, there's always a perception of me that I might be uneducated or I might not have a good job, or I might be promiscuous, or I might be a liar, or I might be a drug seeker. So they walk into the room building themselves up. Oh, I'm an I, I, I'm an ob, GYN, my dad's a dentist, I have this business owner.

[00:20:08] So you see me as a person, it doesn't, don't treat me as who cares what you say? And it's really unfortunate. 

[00:20:13] Bob Gatty: Yeah, okay. I can see that. And I guess you touched on it a little bit, but incorrect diagnoses can result from all of this, can't it? 

[00:20:24] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: All the time. Yeah. Yep.

[00:20:26] That's, and sometimes you like they'll chase the zebra when it's just the horse right in front of them, but they're chasing a zebra. Because again, don't, most black people, oh, this could be sickle cell, and it's just I don't have sickle cell. Why are you chasing the zebra over there when the horse is sitting right in front of you?

[00:20:42] Yeah. So a lot of misdiagnoses happen all the time, or no diagnoses at all? . 

[00:20:47] Bob Gatty: Wow. That's incredible. All right. Now you specialize in birth control. How does someone's ethnicity affect birth control effectiveness? 

[00:20:56] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: So it really and truly, it goes back to, so birth control is made out of one or two hormones, or you can have hormones or you can have birth control that has no hormones in it, but we're talking about hormonal birth control.

[00:21:07] So you can either do progesterone only, or you can do progesterone and estrogen. Okay. And we have actually found that due to different reasons of why women are being put on birth control, it dictates how much progesterone you might need or how much estrogen you may or may not need. Meaning that African American women, a lot of our abnormal bleeding is due to fibroids.

[00:21:31] We have a higher chance of developing fibroids. And so when you have fibroids, you have to find a fine balance between is this person's fibroids where they at? Where exactly are they? Is this somebody that needs to be on progesterone only or is this somebody that needs to be on progesterone and estrogen because this is what's actually affecting them versus a white person that has abnormal bleeding that has absolutely nothing to do with fibroids but it has something to do with her ovarian like her ovarian reserve, how much estrogen she actually has there. So do I need to give her more estrogen or less estrogen? So that's where race just comes into it of like, why one, why are you using the birth control? And if you're using birth control for contraception, it really works the same for everybody, but it becomes a difference when it goes into bleeding or pain like endometriosis and things like that. That's when you look for differences in how much progesterone, how much estrogen, should they get estrogen at all? It's more on the bleeding side versus the contraception side. 

[00:22:27] Bob Gatty: Okay. So you said that you a lot of your work is in small rural communities where they don't have a lot of doctors, right?

[00:22:39] Do you provide abortion services? 

[00:22:44] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: So the places that I've actually gone to, they do not. So I don't do abortion services on what we would call like a viable pregnancy. I don't now a pregnancy that's non viable. I absolutely have done it, but I don't I've gone to like here in Maryland, the particular place that I was at in Maryland just didn't allow it.

[00:23:03] So even if I said this is something that I want to do, that particular place didn't allow it. Okay. Also, my other two places that I go to as far as locums, they just don't allow it. Luckily in Maryland, we are a state that does allow abortion. And so I was very much so able to send my patients to where they needed to go.

[00:23:22] To get the care that they needed. So we definitely, I did counseling on it. Went through, the different types and things like that. But then once we came up to a decision of what they wanted to do, then I was able to refer them to the right institution to do what needed to be done. I 

[00:23:36] Bob Gatty: understand.

[00:23:37] What are your thoughts about the wave of Republican states that are restricting, even criminalizing access to abortions? 

[00:23:44] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: It's terrible. And it's going to kill more women. It's, and to me, it is a it is a detriment to the women that I serve which is usually women who are in rural areas. Women are in poverty and things like that.

[00:24:00] Because. These women can't just up and go to put me on a private plane and fly me to Maryland so I can get my procedure done, which a lot of let's be real. A lot of these Republicans are doing. And I've seen this with my own eyes because I have had patients who are adamant. I am against abortion.

[00:24:20] It's, it's killing a baby. You shouldn't do it. It shouldn't be allowed. No. But for me, It's a different situation, Dr. Gordon, because my baby has a genetic abnormality, or the last time I got pregnant, I almost died because I had preeclampsia, severe preeclampsia, or I had actual eclampsia.

[00:24:38] I had all of these issues, or I have heart disease, and I was told that if I ever get pregnant again, it will kill me. So my abortion is special. I can get my abortion. I have the means to get the abortion that I want to have, but I'm going to restrict other women. Who, whatever reason, I don't ask them why they're having an abortion, because at the end of the day, I'm not going to help you raise this child.

[00:25:00] I'm just, I can't, help you. And so what Republicans are doing are restricting women from basic health care. It is basic health care. And they're putting judgment on women, just thinking that women are just making this easy decision of, I want to end my pregnancy. And for every patient that I've had that have chosen to end their pregnancy, for whatever reason, whether it's genetic, whether it's social reasons, whether it's health reasons, all of those things, All of them.

[00:25:27] It's a very hard decision for them to actually make, but they are being criminalized for making this decision. And then they're also criminalizing the physicians who are, we are just literally just doing our job, which is serving these women and giving them the proper healthcare abortions. Is healthcare.

[00:25:43] It's not political. It's not political at all. I don't believe that it's a woman's uterus and her womb is it something that somebody should make a political stand on the same way that I feel that my skin color isn't a political stand. When people say that black lives matter is political. It's not political.

[00:25:56] It's my life. It's not. 

[00:25:58] Bob Gatty: If you look at the people who are trying to put all these roadblocks in front of women who need to have an abortion. Most of them are old white men. I wonder why that is. 

[00:26:15] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: Isn't that interesting? There are a lot of Theories behind why that's actually happening. One of the main theories that I see on the internet all the time is, again, I love numbers.

[00:26:26] If you look at statistics, the numbers of white babies being born is significantly decreasing and it's decreasing very quickly. So the white race or what, Republican or, extremists would call the pure white race is diminishing. And so there's 

[00:26:42] Bob Gatty: this Republican race. I might be white, but I am not a Republican.

[00:26:52] Let me tell you that. Thank you. 

[00:26:54] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: Let me, and let me be very clear. There are plenty of black Republicans out there. 

[00:26:57] Bob Gatty: Oh, I know. Yeah. We have one. Hey, you know what? I live in South Carolina too. You said you yeah, Myrtle beach. 

[00:27:05] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: Oh, yeah. That's about three hours away from Orangeburg. 

[00:27:07] Bob Gatty: Yeah. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:27:09] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: That's one of the biggest theories. Like one of the biggest theories is they want to hold onto this white race. And again, you're playing the long game. I tell people, these days people are playing chess, not checkers. And so if we have a bunch of white babies being born now, it keeps a it, it keeps laws that they want to have in place to be there because you in their mind, don't get me wrong.

[00:27:30] Like you can have a million. White babies and all of them can decide they don't want to be Republican and not vote your way. But what they're thinking is we're going to play the numbers game and hopefully we can birth enough white babies to continue the agenda agendas that we actually have.

[00:27:45] So that's the biggest reason that they have behind it. Of course, the second reason is, they try to use the Bible. People have completely weaponize the Bible. And so they're just like religiously, you shouldn't kill and blah, blah, blah. These same people vote in laws to where you can have the death penalty.

[00:28:00] So when does it begin and when does it end? 

[00:28:03] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Yeah. They, and not only that, but they oppose any law that would restrict the kind of guns that are killing all these people in school and everything else. Why is that? 

[00:28:14] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: Yes. Again, it goes back to control. We can have the guns. We can have the babies, but you can't.

[00:28:22] Bob Gatty: Okay. Got anything else 

[00:28:23] you want to add?

[00:28:24] I 

[00:28:24] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: really and truly do want to just, touch on again as far as healthcare and women one of the, Very important things is birth control. And again, birth control is just not political at all. It's just, it's a part of healthcare and a woman's right to decide whether or not she wants to, conceive or have a child.

[00:28:42] And it also just helps with bleeding. Birth control pills helps in numerous ways. And that was one of the main reasons why I was so excited to work with or work for Pandia Health because we have made access to birth control so easy. Again, it's not you hunting trying to find in the middle of Wisconsin trying to find a physician that will actually give you birth control and things like that. If you have a, everybody got a phone, everybody has a phone, everybody has a tablet, everybody has a computer.

[00:29:11] You literally just go to Pandiahealth. com and, fill out the application and boom, you now have birth control being delivered to your house either monthly every three months, or you can get your entire year. All at once. So you don't have to worry about all these refills. No, they're all in your house and things like that.

[00:29:28] So birth control is very important. And I really love Dr. Sophia for starting Pandia Health and making it so much easier because again, I did telemedicine at my office, but you also had to be a patient of my office. This platform, you don't have to be a patient. You just have to sign up. We go through everything just to make sure that you make criteria for us to be able to safely give it to you online.

[00:29:51] If we find that you probably do need to have a face to face conversation with the physician. We do tell you that Hey, it might be a little bit better for you to find someone just so we can make sure that we're not mistreating you in any type of way, but Pandia Health really and truly does help with like women's rights as far as taking control of their own health.

[00:30:12] Bob Gatty: That's excellent. How can people reach out to you and learn more? 

[00:30:15] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: So me personally everybody has an Instagram. I need to get back on my Instagram because I've let it go to the wayside, but it's a lot of great information on there as far as obstetrics and gynecology.

[00:30:25] So you can find me at instagram. com at Dr. San OBGYN. So it's D R S A N OBGYN is where you can find me. And the same thing on Facebook. We put in Facebook. Www dot Facebook backslash Dr. San OBGYN. And then also on Pandia health. So Pandia health. com, I am one of the physicians that's there that counsels women and prescribes birth control to women.

[00:30:50] Bob Gatty: Okay, excellent. Listen, I really appreciate you being with me today on the lean to the left podcast. And we talked about some really important things. And I was shocked when I read some of the stories about How African American, especially black and African American people find that they're being subjected to racism when they go to the doctor.

[00:31:14] And it just shocked me. And yeah, and so I was just happy to have you come on and talk about this. 

[00:31:21] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: So anytime you need me, I am here. You are a good Kiki. I've enjoyed you. 

[00:31:26] Bob Gatty: Thank you very much. I'm not quite on my game today the way it should be, but it'll be okay. So thanks so much, Dr.

[00:31:36] San. I really do appreciate it. 

[00:31:38] Dr. Sanlare Gordon: Thank you for inviting me.