Dr. Newkirk: How do you pronounce your first name?
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Quiara.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Okay, Quiara.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: All right. So, today is Thursday October 13th, and I\u2019m here with Dr. Cassandra Newkirk. Cassandra, is that right? Is that the correct name?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yes.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Okay. And tell me where you are interviewing from.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Where I am interviewing from?
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Currently.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: (Laughs) I live in Boca Raton, Florida.<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Okay.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: So, I happen to be home today.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Okay, great. So, just to jump right into the interview, tell me a little bit about where you\u2019re from, where you were born, and a little bit about your family life.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: I was born and raised pretty much between Burgaw and Wilmington, North Carolina. I am the oldest of two children. Both my parents were educators. My mother was a primary school teacher all her career, and my father was middle school teacher, and then he ended up being principal for more years than not. We lived in Burgaw, Kenansville, which is in Duplin County, and then we ended up in Wilmington, which is New Hanover County. So, I graduated from New Hanover High School. Um, yeah, so that\u2019s the basics.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Did you move to Wilmington at a young age? Or did you move there \u2013\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: No. Actually, I moved to Wilmington when I was starting ninth grade. Um so, but my father was always from there, so for a while they were building a house while we were in Duplin County. And so, we would go home on weekends. I really didn\u2019t settle into Wilmington until I was in ninth grade. So, I finished high school in Wilmington though.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Tell me a little bit about what it was like growing up with your mom, and dad, and your two sisters.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: One brother.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: One brother.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. I am the oldest of two children, yeah, its yeah \u2013 my brother. Um, it was \u2013 I\u2019d call it a quiet family (Laughs). It was all about school and really family. Most of my mother\u2019s family, she had \u2013 a lot of them had moved away up north \u2013 and so she had her oldest sister [that] lived in the area. And she had, her oldest sister, had one child, and so I grew up with a lot of second cousins. My father\u2019s family was pretty much not in the area either, they had moved away, but my grandparents \u2013 my paternal grandparents \u2013 lived in Wilmington. So, like I said, quiet in a sense that not a lot we did with grandparents, so mostly what we did was parents, and you know, summer vacation, but everything was about parents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAnd we went to school with our parents for quite a bit at the same school, which was not a good thing \u2018cause you were the teacher\u2019s kid. (Laughs) So, that was not a pleasant thing. Yeah. You always had to be on your Ps and Qs \u2018cause you were the teacher\u2019s kid, and then for a while we were actually at the same school where my father was the principal, that was even worse.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: (Laughs) Yeah, I can imagine.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: So that was \u2013 yeah, that was worse. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m stepping on anybody\u2019s toes, but I guess it\u2019s like being a preacher\u2019s kid. (Both laugh)
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: So, did they both follow you both throughout your entire primary [education]?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Um, First, second, and third grade I went to the same school where my mother was the teacher. So (laughs), middle school we went to the same school where my mother taught, and father was principal. And so, finally it\u2019s like \u201clook, high school,\u201d [and I] finally broke away. It was just like \u201cFinally.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Finally escaped.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. My brother had it a little bit better cause he was a couple years younger, so he was kind of away from the parents. So, he was kinda out on his own a little bit longer. But I say that because I think in terms of just being um \u2013 I wasn\u2019t much of a social butterfly \u2018cause it was always about what were people thinking. Although, Wilmington is much, much larger than what it was then, it was just a big town. And because I moved when I was a budding teenager, it wasn\u2019t that easy. So, yeah it was just, I call it a quiet family, really traditional \u2013 holiday time. Going basically one vacation a year kinda thing, and usually it was to visit family, it wasn\u2019t like now you go out and you do things. It was really more family \u2013 family visits kinda thing.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: So, visiting like your paternal side in Wilmington.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah, yeah. So, doing, doing well in school was emphasized, so I did a lot of reading, so spent a lot of my spare time reading. Just reading was what I did.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: What was your favorite genre \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Wasn\u2019t in sports. I was in the band though. I enjoyed music. My brother had a natural ear for music, I didn\u2019t, I was one who had to read the music. So, I didn\u2019t get that gift that he got. (Laughs)
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: What was your favorite genre of book or is your favorite genre?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Mysteries.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Mysteries?<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: I read \u2013 yeah \u2013 I read I think Sherlock Holmes entire collection when I was in high school.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Wow, wow.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. I remember that, that was \u2013 yeah Sherlock Holmes… in high school.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Great selection. I hadn\u2019t read them, but I heard they are really good.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. And I haven\u2019t picked it up since. (Both laugh)
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: It was one and done type of thing. Let\u2019s see. Who was the most influential in your youth, and childhood, and how? So, any relatives, friends, people at church, schoolteachers.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Wow. Probably my first grade \u2013 I remember my first or second grade teacher \u2013 \u2018cause when we went to school that was in Burgaw when I started. School was, school was next door, so I mean that was kinda, I jumped across the ditch, and I was at school. But probably my first and second grade teacher, the same teacher.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAnd then, later on my \u2013 I had a ninth grade \u2013 I remember my math teacher, \u2018cause I was coming in from rural school to the quote \u201ccity school of Wilmington.\u201d She was the one \u2013 I got teased because I was quote \u201cthe country kid,\u201d and that was the first year away from my parents at school. And I remember my math teacher, and she was saying, \u201cOh you can do it, you can do it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nActually, I excelled and got bored. Actually. (Laughs) But anyway.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Expected, expected.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. Anyway, so that was probably growing up\u2026 during those years. High school was a different thing \u2018cause I was in high school during well, Affirmative Action, that was when Black students could choose to go to the White school. And so, I chose to go to the predominantly White school my 10th grade year. [I] had no \u2013 and I was ready to then transfer to the Black school the next year and they closed it \u2013 and I had no choice. And when they closed the Black school \u2013 \u2018cause it was the Black and White schools when they closed the Black school \u2013 so nobody \u2013 so then it was totally integrated. And that was the year of the Wilmington, my 11th and 12th grade years. So, it was the years of the race riots.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAnd I don\u2019t know if you know the name Ben Chavis?
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: No.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Reverend Ben Chavis is still around; I saw him featured on \u2013 I think he was at NMA presentation. I\u2019m like, \u201cWow\u201d \u2018cause Ben Chavis was very young then. And he was \u2013 came to town \u2013 and it was a lot of civil rights kinda meetings when we were in high school. So, I did get to go to those, so that was kind of a very interesting time. I remember wondering if I was gonna graduate \u2018cause I walked out of class with a lot of other students. I happen to have been the president of the senior class at that time too, and walked out of class. And it\u2019s like boycotting class (Laughs) my senior year in high school during the springtime when we were all trying to get ready for graduation and so. So yeah, it was very interesting but trying time \u2018cause we had curfews, National Guard in the street, on, and on, and on. So, that was the late 60s. It was after MLK, and Kennedy assassinations, and then, so when all heck broke loose, pretty much.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: That historical period. Would you say it was \u2013<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah.<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: \u2013 the first time that you experienced something to that extreme when you got to high school?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Probably to that \u201cin your face.\u201d I grew up in a very segregated environment, \u2018cause when I talked about going to school, I had gone to Black schools. It was no predominantly Black. They were all Black, all the teachers, all the principals, everybody was Black. And so, it was very little going outside of our communities for any reason. So, when I moved to Wilmington, uh, see what did I get into? Parks and recreation, dance classes were integrated kinda thing and going to high school. So, by the time I finished, I think I was in the first group of the integrated group for the Azalea Festival in Wilmington. I don\u2019t even know if they still have that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nBut they always had a teenage division, and they would have activities around town, but it had always been White. And I remember going to my White church, the first White church I had ever been to in Wilmington during that period of time. So, and I played in the \u2013 somehow, I got to do the unusual things, I was \u2013 I got elected president of senior class, and I played oboe in the marching band. (Laughs) I started out playing clarinet and ended up playing oboe in the orchestra.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: (Laughs) Musical instruments coming in.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. So, probably that was a very influential time. And I will always remember my guidance counselor who was a White lady told me that, you know, \u201cWell, what do you wanna do?\u201d And I was looking into doing biomedical engineering, and she just kinda looked at me, and just said, \u201cOh, you\u2019ll \u2013 you\u2019ll never do that.\u201d So and, that was, that was, as again, at the time of Affirmative Action, so I don\u2019t know how many schools I applied to, but I ended up going to Duke. That\u2019s where I did my undergraduate work.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Right, okay.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. And I did not \u2013 well, I was gonna say I didn\u2019t enjoy myself, but it was a very trying time \u2018cause I got to Duke the year after they had burned Duke Forest. And they had to sit-ins in the President\u2019s Office, the Black students at Duke University. So, I don\u2019t know how much of that history you know about.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: I\u2019m not too familiar with that. Yeah.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. Well, that\u2019s an interesting Duke history \u2018cause that was \u2018cause I entered Duke in 2000 \u2013 I\u2019m sorry \u2013 1970. And I think it was \u201968 or \u201969, they had had a sit-in at the President\u2019s Office at Duke, so we were very close knit \u2013\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Right.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: African American group. They started a Black Studies Department shortly before I got there. So, I was interested in doing biomedical engineering, but you couldn\u2019t go to engineering school directly, you had to do a year [of] general studies, and then apply for engineering school. And I got interested and met a lot of Black students who were premed my first year, so that\u2019s how I got interested in medicine. Kinda hanging out with the premed students \u2013 the Black premed students.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: And they \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: And ended up \u2013 yeah. Because I was \u2013 we were all interested in Black studies then, \u2018cause that was a thing. [I] ended up doing a lot of Black studies courses. So, I ended up with \u2013 a Bachelor of Science in Black Studies is what I ended up with. (Laughs)
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: (Laughs) I have a similar story. I called myself minoring by accident, but just \u2018cause I stumbled across a lot of courses in that.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. So, it was like \u2013 I enjoyed the collegial relationship, but it was kinda traumatic \u2018cause it was you know, Duke was Duke, and it was not only a White school, it was a very \u2013 the majority of the White students who were there were children of alumni. So, very, very well-off financially, had come from lot of northern schools, northern prep schools. And so, coming in from the public schools of North Carolina \u2013 even though I went to a White school and did very well \u2013 that was no \u2013 that was really no comparison to the students that were coming in from White schools. So, it was kind of tough academically at Duke, and I really did not \u2013 so in that sense I did not enjoy academics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nI went to \u2013 I think I went to one band practice. (Laughs) Okay, I\u2019ll get in a band. And never went back, it\u2019s like, \u201cOh this is the most boring band I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d Absolutely not, absolutely not. So, I did \u2013 my extra-curricular activities at Duke were really the Black student whatever, we had a gospel choir, dance group. Yeah.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Sticking around that familiar community.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah, yeah. So that was \u2013 and I went to summer school two summers \u2018cause I just wanted to get out, and just leave.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: So, you went to summer school at Duke?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: At Duke, yeah. So, I\u2019m actually class of \u201973 at Duke \u2018cause I went to two summer \u2013 basically two summer sessions ended up being a year. And so, I had applied to medical school, did not \u2013 actually got into Meharry, and somehow never got the admission statement, so I didn\u2019t go. (Laughs)
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Really? So, they told you that you got in after you had already \u2013?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: No. They, they mailed the admissions announcement, but I think they sent it if I remember \u2013 they sent it to my college whatever address. But then I was gone, and I never got it. So, life is what it was supposed to be. And so, I don\u2019t think I applied to that many places, but I had applied to Meharry. I had an aunt that worked in \u2013 she was head surgical nurse at Meharry Hospital. And so anyway \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: So, let\u2019s backtrack a little and go back to college. So, tell me how did you finance your college education at Duke?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: My parents financed it.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Right. So, they helped you while you were there with like basic needs and things.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. Tuition, books, the whole nine yards. Yeah.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: And you did talk a little bit about what kinda sparked your interest in medicine, with you hanging out with the premeds.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Well, yeah, and kinda I guess medicine \u2013 I don\u2019t even remember why I got interested. But I was actually a \u2013 I was volunteer at the hospital when I was in high school. So, I had started hanging out at hospitals way back then.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: And that was your \u2013<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: I think my junior and senior year in high school.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Was that your first exposure to \u2013?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, like I said, my mother\u2019s sister was a nurse at Meharry Hospital, but there were no physicians in my family or anybody. When I was at Duke undergrad, I \u2013 one of my second cousins was actually in medical school at Duke at the time I was in undergrad, so he was probably the first. And like I said, he was a second cousin, we\u2019d known each other all our lives, but we weren\u2019t close. But we really didn\u2019t have any other physicians in our family.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Right. Do you remember a family doctor or someone who influenced you at a younger age that you can recall?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: I remember my family doctor, but I can\u2019t say he influenced me. Yeah, yeah. I had Black \u2013 I had the same Black family doctor my entire life in Wilmington, \u2018cause even though we were in Burgaw we used to go to Wilmington to go to the doctor. And there were two or three doctors \u2013 Black doctors in town.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: And how far was that drive?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: It was 20-25 miles.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Okay, so not long.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah, yeah. \u2018Cause Wilmington was the big town, or small city. Burgaw was a little town.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Off to the edge?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Let\u2019s see.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: So, Burgaw would be like Rock Hill is to Charlotte. (Laughs)
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Okay, okay. I get that comparison. (Laughs)
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. I figured you might.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Right, I got that one. Let\u2019s see. Were there any enrichment programs for perspective Black medical students? Like for instance, UNC currently has an MED program. Um so do \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: I was \u2013 I was in the MED program.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Great, I was too! Yeah.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Well, yeah, MED has been around for a while, \u2018cause it was around before I got there. So, yeah, MED has been around for a while.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Tell me about that experience with the MED program.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: That was a phenomenal experience. Like I said, I \u2013 I ended up getting accepted at Carolina. There were what, 24 Black students in my med school class?<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Okay.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: At that time, yeah, once we got started we had the dubious honor of having the second largest number of African American students in a predominantly White school in the county.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Wow!<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: Only University of Florida Gainesville had more, I always remember that. Yeah. \u2018Cause we used to keep up with that through SNMA.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah!<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: So yeah, there were about \u2013 so it was a very large group of us comparatively speaking at Carolina. \u2018Cause I think maybe 120 first-year students all total and about 24-25 of us were Black.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah. That\u2019s a significant number.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was 1974. So, yeah. And one \u2013 we had a set of African American female twins.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Oh really?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Debra and Diane Scott. I don\u2019t know if you guys have run across them, but that would be an interesting interview \u2018cause Debra and Diane were twins. And they went \u2013 where did they go? UNC Charlotte and then they ended up at UNC Chapel Hill in med school.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Okay.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: And Debra \u2013 I think Diane ended up being the anesthesiologist, and Debra did pediatrics. Debra, I think ended up in Charlotte last I heard.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Really?\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: I\u2019m gonna have to look into this.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. You\u2019re gonna have to look through the archives. Debra and Diane Scott. Yeah.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Okay. Debra and Diane Scott.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: So, that was fun for us. They were not identical (Quiara laughs) so we could tell them apart, but it was just kind of that unusual phenomenon to have twins.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Right to have twins be a part of \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah, in your med school class. Yeah. So yeah, I was in the MED program, that was phenomenal. My roommate \u2013 trying to think did Gwen and I\u2026I think we were roommates that summer. Whether we were roommates or not, we\u2019re still best friends.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Aw. Did you meet that summer in the MED program?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Uh-huh yeah. And we\u2019re still best friends.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: How formative was that for you in either choosing Carolina or choosing any med school in particular?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: That didn\u2019t have \u2013 we didn\u2019t \u2013 that was not promoted during the application period.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: What wasn\u2019t promoted? The \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: MED.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: MED Program. Oh, really?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: So, that had nothing to do with the choice.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Ah, okay, okay.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah, no. We \u2013 I knew nothing about MED until I was accepted, and then they told us about the program.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Oh okay. So, you participated in the program after you were accepted to medical school.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. So, did they do it before now as \u2013<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yes.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: \u2013 a summer premed thing?
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Right. So, it kind of simulates \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: That\u2019s even better.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: \u2013 their first year of medical school now. So, tell me about how it was for you. Like, what did it encompass if you did it after you started?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: No, no, no. Not after it started. It was the \u2013 med school started what, that August? So, we were there like June and July.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Okay. So, it was like a pre-bridge.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah, right, yeah. So, that was the summer between undergrad and med school. But I actually ended up not getting into med school my first year out of Duke, so I ended up going to A&T for a semester.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Okay, yeah. Tell me about your med school application process and how you got to UNC.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: I don\u2019t \u2013 that was traumatic. I don\u2019t remember it. All I remember is when I didn\u2019t get in, I realized I gotta have a plan A and a plan B. So, actually then I applied to the School of Public Health and med school the second time around. And I decided to go to A&T \u2018cause I decided I needed a Black experience. (Laughs) So while I was waiting. And my brother was a freshman at A&T. It\u2019s like, \u201cI gotta get out of this White world. I need \u2013 (Laughs again) I need to go to some football \u2013 some real football games.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: The band! (Laughs)
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yes, yeah, yeah. So, I spent a semester at A&T, and then I went home that second semester, and I think I shortly got in. So, I just kinda hung around home, and waiting for the MED at that time just getting started, and then went. So, yeah, it was the summer before first year of med school.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Okay. So, at A&T you were taking science courses?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. I was. I was taking science courses and really more premed, just to kinda keep up that interest. And so, yeah I did. Like I said, my brother was there as a freshman, so.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Great. And so, you landed at UNC, tell me about your time at the School of Medicine here overall.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Actually, it was generally positive. It was \u2013 there were enough of us as \u2013 well I. The MED program I think what happened \u2013 because they always included the upperclassmen, usually the class right above you, so these were the students that had just finished first year. So, a lot of those folks became fast friends as well. The, I guess, the preceptors that were in the MED program. And so, Gwen and I lived out in the community. You know we had an apartment. We rented from down on Johnson Street in Chapel Hill. And we rented. The guy who owned these duplexes, and I think just about all of us were med students. So Friday evenings we used to have \u2013 Gwen lived on a farm, so we would go home. Her family would pack up the fish from the pond, her grandmother made scuppernong grape wine, and they would send us back with food.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAnd my parents bought the little freezers, so we used to cook \u2018cause we were just little old country girls. So, we used to cook, and we\u2019d sit out on the stoop, and fry fish, and that was the Friday afternoon whatever. So, like I said, it was a small group of Black med students that lived in that area, so that was the Friday night thing to do.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: If I was there, I would be on Johnson Street every time. (Both laugh)
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: So it was kinda interesting \u2018cause it was like, well you know, we didn\u2019t do too much \u2013 going to. And my roommate went to NCC, so she still had some ties over there. And she lived about an hour away. She lived out on the other side of Raleigh in Zebulon, that\u2019s where her parents lived. So, actually I think I went home with her so much \u2018cause it was so close that I still go to her family reunions. And \u2013 (Laughs) that\u2019s just how close we got.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Y\u2019all really sparked that true friendship in [multiple places].\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah, absolutely. We [recently] went to the grandbaby\u2019s first birthday party, and I said, \u201cOkay, it\u2019s the girl\u2019s weekend.\u201d The kid was just, you know.<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Right.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: A first birthday party is not for the kid. (Both laugh)
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Right, it\u2019s for the adults, definitely.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. I think it was really the upper class \u2013 so, like I said, the class above us \u2013 they became \u2013 we all became fast friends. And so then, it was our turn to, you know, be preceptors for the MED program. So it was just \u2013 that I can truly say that was \u2013 everybody took it very seriously. And it was \u2013 and pretty much I think just about all of us made it through.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Out of the 24 that started?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. I remember, unfortunately, one young man hung himself.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Oh, no.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Committed suicide. And just about everybody else, I think, made it. And so, but it was just that support and the support systems that grew up around the upperclassmen even after the MED. We always called on them and I\u2019m still friends with two or three of the upperclassmen, you know, class above me too because of that. So, we just always stayed in touch.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: So, with that community with the upperclassmen and with your class, did you often think about the fact that you were a minority? Was that ever up close and apparent for you academically, or socially? Or was your community so closely knit that it never really came up?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Okay. Talk to me what you\u2019re talking about. Because I think we lived in… Yeah, we were all in rounds and stuff together, but once we got out of the classroom and off the wards, it was like you went back to the community. And socially, it was almost all Black. We seldom mixed socially \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah. So to be a med student \u2013\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: \u2013 with the White students.<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: The question is what was it like to be one of few Black people in your class? Did you often think about that fact? And if so, why?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Well having come from an integrated high school, I didn\u2019t consider 24 few. That was a lot. (Laughs)<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: So to be few in number I didn\u2019t seriously I didn\u2019t \u2013 well, I take that back. I went to Duke when the numbers were much smaller, even though there was a reasonable large cadre, because that was undergraduate school. I felt more lost at Duke than I did in med school at Carolina. So the numbers \u2013 and then the numbers of the Black students in the class above us was large enough, not quite as large as ours but pretty large, that when we were together it was not like we were quote \u201cfew.\u201d So, it\u2019s interesting the way the question is posed. (Laughs) Yeah. We were this community within the larger community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAnd probably the \u2013 if you were White and out-of-state at Carolina versus White and being in the state, or if you were Jewish, you may have had fewer connections than we had as Black folks.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Smaller community, yeah.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. If that makes sense.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: That makes sense.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. And I think I remember only one or two of the African American students were from out-of-state, \u2018cause almost everybody was from in-state. So, that was an interesting phenomenon. So, we all had \u2013 and we almost all came from public schools of North Carolina. So, in that sense, it was a reasonably homogeneous group.<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. With very similar experiences.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: A good feeling of comfort and community then.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah, absolutely.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: And still by the Friday functions. (Phone rings) Sorry. So, tell me \u2013 oh, go ahead?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: No, go on.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Outside of your friend group and the people in the community, were you close to or who were you closest to at the School of Medicine? Faculty, administrators, anything of that nature?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Harold Wallace. Harold Wallace was \u2013 wait a minute. Was Harold at Duke or Carolina? Actually, I think he was at Duke and ended up at Carolina. Harold \u2013 And I\u2019m blocking on if he was at Duke or Carolina. And also remember those two schools were so close together that it ended up being sometimes we would do some things together. And you know, I don\u2019t remember if Harold was at Duke or Carolina. But it was kinda interesting, one of the things that Carolina was doing when I was there [is] that you had first- and second-year didactics. But you did first year\u2026 the afternoons are either pretty much self-study or you were in the lab.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAnd when we would go to meetings, SNMA meetings and talk to our friends who went to other med schools, they were in class all day, and we had this weird different schedule. And so, that was always kind of a sense of, \u201cOkay. What do I do with this?\u201d But, you know, you\u2019d gotten to the group, it was either afternoon labs, or self-study. A lot of self-study then. And then, second year was, if I remember, was pretty much the same. Third year, you could go, by this time you knew that what your upperclassmen were doing. And they allowed us to find other places to do rotations. So, we didn\u2019t have to stay there at the university setting \u2018cause that was pretty much tertiary center. They encourage you to get your, you know, find a primary care hospital or somewhere to do a rotation. So, that was exciting, \u2018cause we had some of our colleagues to go overseas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Oh wow!<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: And so, it also pushed us all to find. So, I did my OBGYN third year rotation at Meharry since I\u2019d always wanted to go there anyway. So I did it at Meharry. So it was like staying in the door. (Laughs)
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Full circle. (Laughs)
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: And I don\u2019t even remember how I set it up, but they allowed us to find the spot, and just go. I did \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: What year? This was for third year?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Third year, third year. And I remember I did a rotation at Charlotte, at the hospital in Charlotte. I did a rotation at New Hanover in Wilmington; I went home and did a rotation. So, that was fantastic.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah. How was that going back home to do your [rotation]?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: That was good. I was no longer \u2013 I mean I was \u2013 but they had \u2013 New Hanover Memorial was open to the med students, so they were used to having the med students come. So, I was just another med student, but I stayed at home. They actually had these apartments behind the hospital where the med students would stay in residence, \u2018cause at that time that was also one of the rotation sites for some of their residents, especially their primary care. Their family practice residents would come and rotate, \u2018cause that hospital was more of your big community hospital versus a tertiary center. So, I \u2013 we always thought that Carolina was in the forefront of just really creating doctors who were gonna work in the communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAnd so, they exposed you to that pretty much. I remember the area health at the AHEC centers, Area Health Education Centers, that all were connected with the school, and so a lot of people did rotations. So yeah. That was just kinda fun. So in those settings you really, I think once I got out into the clinical settings, it was more normal to be with colleagues, whoever they were, and you know whoever you\u2019re on a rotation [with]. So, everybody was pretty friendly, whatever, whatever, and you know, then once \u2013 most times everybody is going off to study and go to sleep anyway, \u2018cause whatever. So yeah during that time. So, the one professor I remember or attending \u2013 he was the attending \u2013 I don\u2019t remember whether it was third or fourth year, was Dr. Bryant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAnd I think he just passed \u2013 No. Was it Bryant or O\u2019Brian? And I think he just passed away in the last couple years, and they did a big, big thing. He was in his 90s.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: So it\u2019s so funny that you mentioned this. I think I was transcribing another interview, and I think that other interviewer mentioned him too and them throwing a big party for him.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. And I think I remember the party. But the reason I remember him, he was this older, well he wasn\u2019t that old then, White gentleman. But I always remember he was very culturally sensitive then and I remember we were on rounds in the hospital. And the was a young \u2013 there was medicine. I think it was internal medicine. And there was a young lady, a Black woman, and they couldn\u2019t figure out what was going on with her, and she was obviously dying, and nobody could figure out. They couldn\u2019t find anything wrong with her. And the family \u2013 she and the family \u2013 kept saying that she was rooted, and she was rooted, but everybody thought that was weird. But I grew up hearing about roots.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Rooted?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Roots. Roots. That she has roots worked on her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Okay.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. I don\u2019t know. Do you know anything about voodoo and roots?
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yes. I took a course in college but yeah.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Okay. So, that\u2019s what I\u2019m talking about. You know the residents, you know \u2013 this quizzical look on their face, and blah, blah, blah. And so, I always remember he said, \u201cOkay. So, what\u2019re we gonna do?\u201d You know everybody is doing \u2013 and she was getting worse, and worse, and worse, but they couldn\u2019t find anything obviously wrong with her. So, in the end, he allowed the family to bring in a witch doctor to take off the spell. She was still in the hospital, and that to me, was the most fascinating thing.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: A White physician.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. And of course, she got better, and got up, and walked out of the hospital. (Laughs)<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah? Yeah? (Laughs)<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: But at the time \u2013 and I don\u2019t remember which came first \u2013 that I met Dr. Wilber Jordan, I always remember him through SNMA, he was an internist up in Massachusetts. A brother from Arkansas, whose father was a Haitian voodoo priest. And he lectured at the meeting, and told us all about how he fought, \u2018cause he was expected to become a voodoo priest and healer as well, and he fought that \u2018cause he was into western medicine. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he couldn\u2019t get away from it, and so he ended up being \u2013 his father taught him everything he knew, and he ended up combining his traditional western medicine with his traditional voodoo practice. And that to me was the most fascinating thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nSo, and I don\u2019t remember if I met him after the patient at North Carolina or vice versa.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Wow. So, he did a talk in a lecture on that?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. But not at UNC, the lecture was actually at SNMA. Or it was either SNMA or NMA was where I was exposed to him. But in a totally different setting. But I remember Dr. \u2013 and I\u2019ll have to, I\u2019m trying to think of his first name \u2013 it was either O\u2019Brian or Bryant, but he exposed all the students to that. And he was just so matter of fact about it, it was like, you know, he understood the cultural stuff.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah, yeah. Whereas in other situations\u2013<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: And I grew up\u2013<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: I\u2019m sure in other situations it wouldn\u2019t have been handled that way.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Right. I just always \u2013 I think he was the person, and I don\u2019t think I ever forgot that experience in terms of somebody being that culturally sensitive, especially a White guy. A middle-aged White guy.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: I\u2019m sure you carried that with you. It\u2019s kinda like taking a step back sometimes and really recognizing the patient as a patient with, you know, family history.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. Well, I \u2013 when I was in training, I had the opportunity to actually, as a resident, we had a psych patient who \u2013 did you ever hear about the movie The Exorcist?
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yes. Yes.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Okay. This patient would do \u2013 she ended up doing all these strange movements and stuff on the psych unit. I trained at Grady in Atlanta, and I will always remember that. And we ended up so, I think I even brought it up, \u201cDo we really think she\u2019s got roots on her?\u201d \u2018Cause the meds weren\u2019t working. And we allowed the family to come in and do whatever ceremony they wanted to.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah. And what was the outcome?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: And it was like. Huh?
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: What was the outcome?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: She got better. But she had incorporated, I always remember, I forget what religion they were, but she had been shown a movie of what hell was like and she tripped out.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: And when I heard the family explain it to me, it\u2019s like, \u201cOkay. I probably would\u2019ve tripped out too if I had seen this movie.\u201d (Laughs)
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: (Laughs) That seems to be [very scary].<\/p>\n
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. So it was like \u2013 and I think she must\u2019ve seen the movie The Exorcist, and etc. But yeah, so yeah. But I grew up in rural North Carolina, so I grew up with people talking about roots. My family was afraid of it, so they stayed away from it, but that did not keep people from talking about it. So, I knew what he was talking about. Yeah. But to really get exposed to, \u201cHey, there are voodoo healers and then there are those who are not so kind,\u201d that was what Dr. Jordan was teaching us. That it\u2019s both sides, it\u2019s the black magic, and it\u2019s those that are the healers. And his father was a healer. So yeah. So, I think that was my most influential time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAnd probably the other influential faculty member was, and I\u2019m blocking on her name, but when I did my psychiatry rotation I was fascinated by psychiatry. But there was a woman, a White woman that I really, and I\u2019ll think of her name eventually, I really appreciated. And I\u2019m trying to think \u2013 I don\u2019t think I had any Black faculty at Carolina, but like I said I did get the Meharry experience.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: So, no like professors, no preceptors? Wow.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Not that I\u2019m recalling, no. And like I said the preceptors and the folks were, like I said \u2013 I think because we were such a tight knit group when if we needed anything we went to the upperclassmen.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Right, right. Who would pass down all the knowledge.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But formal? No.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Interesting.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: I think there was some folks that went before us, and they would come back. I remember a couple people that came back, but they weren\u2019t there when I was there. But yeah.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Like a graduating came back to precept and teach?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. Yeah. So \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Were you facing any hardship as a medical student? Hardships meaning did you ever doubt your own abilities as a student, and things of that nature?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Oh I think self-doubt was always there. That was just kinda growing up as a Black girl in the south. That was just kinda. But we were raised [where] you pretty much had to be twice as good as everybody else, but it was still like, \u201cAm I good enough?\u201d So, I think that just hung around for quite a while. It\u2019s only as I\u2019ve gotten much older that you know, you kinda \u2013 as I tell folks as you get older you put your hand on your hip, and put the finger in the face, and you don\u2019t care. It\u2019s like \u201cWell what\u2019re you gonna do? Fire me?\u201d It\u2019s like \u201cDuh!\u201d\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: (Laughs) Yes. So, that kinda goes along with imposter syndrome. Are you familiar with that?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yes, oh absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: So, you experienced that while you were in school too. Can you tell me a story about a time you either felt unwelcome or felt like you didn\u2019t belong in your medical education?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: No. Not particularly. I\u2019m sure there were those times, but like I said, we tended to \u2013 when times got hard, we leaned on each other. So, I don\u2019t remember any one particular time. I just remember you know the studying got to be so hard at you know some point you really \u2013 you were talking about the imposter syndrome, it\u2019s like if you felt down on yourself you couldn\u2019t wallow for so long \u2018cause you had to, you know, as we\u2019re used to doing, compartmentalize. It\u2019s like, \u201cOkay. I gotta go over here and do this.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: And I\u2019m sure there were other friends, and other people in your circle that felt the same, so it was nice being able to \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, that was comforting to know the upperclassmen. And you know, we also saw some of our colleagues and upperclassmen, you know, they got into their \u2013some not so healthy lifestyles and so we understood they were hurting. But you know, they had been those folks that we \u2013 you know you wanna take care of. Yeah. So yeah. Life is life, so.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Right. Something that\u2019s been getting me through, especially with boards coming up, is \u201cit has been done before me, and it will be done after me.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Absolutely. Absolutely.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Tell me how you financed your medical education.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: That was through a North Carolina grant. Some family money, but mostly grant, \u2018cause I was an in-state student, so the tuition wasn\u2019t that high. And then, for room, and board, and books, it was the \u2013 I don\u2019t remember the name of it, but it was the grant where the state would give you money, and then you just had to pay back a year working in the state for each year they paid. Or you paid it back, I ended up paying mine back later.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah. So, a grant. Great. Any other prominent things that stick out from your med school experience at the university before we transition to beyond UNC School of Medicine to residency?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: No. Interestingly enough \u2013 an interesting story, about two years ago a lady that I\u2019ve, a psychiatrist, she lives in Raleigh, she\u2019s a White lady, she and I had been on this committee probably for the last five or six years, American Psychiatric Association. She walked up to me \u2013 sent me an email after meeting \u2013 and we always used to just chit chat. She said, \u201cYou really don\u2019t remember who I am, do you?\u201d I was like \u201cNo.\u201d She said, \u201cI was at Duke with you, and I was at Carolina with you.\u201d I\u2019m going, \u201cOkay.\u201d\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Classmate?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. I had no clue. Now, mind you, this was about two years ago. She said, \u201cI always admired how you carried yourself at Duke\u201d \u2018cause she was going through her changes. And I\u2019m saying, \u201cOh my goodness, if you only knew.\u201d And she said, \u201cI used to watch you at Carolina.\u201d Well, she\u2019s gay, so she was going through all of that, and so she used to watch. And it was like we had \u2013 it was\u2013 we were comfortable with each other on this committee, but after all this time, and I asked her, \u201cWhy did you never say that to me earlier?\u201d She still didn\u2019t feel \u2013 she didn\u2019t know how I was gonna take it. It\u2019s like \u201cWell what was I gonna say?\u201d (Laughs) We are 60 something year old women now, and she\u2019s just telling [me] \u2013 and it was the most fascinating thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nBut my point to that story is you never know who\u2019s watching. And what I said to her was, \u201cSo and so, think about it. I stood out like a sore thumb \u2018cause I\u2019m a tall Black woman.\u201d I wasn\u2019t paying any attention to her, but she was watching me.<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Right. Right.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: She was just another student to me.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah. It\u2019s so funny that, you know, she two years ago, within two years, and you\u2019re like, \u201cNo, I don\u2019t remember.\u201d (Laughs)
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: No, well it\u2019s no way. Like I said, we graduated Carolina in \u201978, and she was with me at Duke in the earlier 70s. So anyway.<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah. Long time ago.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: But as you say, after med school, you never know who\u2019s watching.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Right. Right. And what connections. Yeah.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: You never know. So anyway.<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Tell me what residency was like for you. Where did you attend?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: I went to Howard.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Howard, yeah. You got back to the HBCU that you wanted.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. I did the bounce. Well it was really kinda fascinating at that point. So, I went to Howard in Washington, and I had decided I was gonna do pediatrics. So, I did my internship. And to do psychiatry you have to do an internship in a primary care specialty anyway, so I did my internship in pediatrics. And then, I decided all the mothers needed help, so it\u2019s like, \u201cMaybe I need to do psychiatry. Ain\u2019t nothing wrong with the kids, the mothers are all crazy.\u201d (Laughs) I mean that was exactly my thinking. I remember \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: (Laughs) That is so funny.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Well, you know, you\u2019re on call as a first-year resident, Howard University emergency room, pediatrics, 2:00 a.m. in the morning, it is 30 degrees outside, and she drags \u2013 mamas were dragging in kids with runny noses at 3:00 a.m. in the morning. And it\u2019s like \u201cSo, you wake me up \u2018cause Sally Sue got a runny nose? Does she have a fever?\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d (Both laugh) And it\u2019s like by the time you got to \u2013 it’s like \u201cso, I\u2019m staying up all night taking care of runny noses.\u201d Then you go, \u201cSomething is wrong with this picture.\u201d\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: So, you said, \u201cOkay. The kids are fine, the mothers, the dads.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: But the reality is they all knew they didn\u2019t have to wait to see a doctor in the emergency room at 2:00 a.m. in the morning. And if you\u2019re on public assistance or whatever you\u2019re doing, you\u2019re not gonna come to the emergency room at 2:00 in the afternoon when everybody else and their mom is there, and you gonna stay there five or six hours. Of course, I look back on the realities now, but when you\u2019re in the midst of it, it\u2019s like, \u201cOkay.\u201d So, I\u2019m up 36 hours taking care of snotty nosed babies. And then it was about teaching them how to take care of their children themselves. And so yeah. But or the \u2013 so anyway\u2013 so, I decided to do psychiatry. Plus, I met some fantastic psychiatrists, Black psychiatrists at Howard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nBut it was kind of a \u2013 I had mixed feelings. It\u2019s like, \u201cOkay. I\u2019ve always wanted that Black experience.\u201d There were six of us in the \u2013 as pediatric interns, I was the only one not from Howard.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Everyone was from Howard. But everyone was Black?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Everyone was Black, and everyone was from Howard, so I felt excluded. And I actually ended up feeling more excluded in that group than I did being at Chapel Hill.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Really?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: And to me, it took me a long time to compute that because they had gone to med school together with each other at Howard. So, they had already had their bonds, I was the new kid coming in. That was not what I expected.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah. So, did you eventually find a community and support in that program?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Not really, which I think why it was so easy for me to leave.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah. Oh you left?<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: Oh yeah, I left and went to Emory in Atlanta, which is where my best friend from med school was at that time doing peds. (Laughs)
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: It was meant to be. (Laughs) It was meant to be.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: And so, she was in Atlanta, and I had visited her in Atlanta. And I had visited Atlanta before. And then, one of my good friends, a Black woman from Duke, had lived in Atlanta. She was in California doing psychiatry. But I did my intern \u2013 so, I did my psychiatry residency at Emory. So, that was at Grady. Emory was pretty much like Duke, mostly White \u2013 the med school \u2013 but the residency programs were very mixed at the time. I ended up being chief resident. I was the first African American Chief Resident of Psychiatry at Emory in Grady. But the chief of service was an African American guy, Dr. Dewitt Alfred, who ended up being a first chair of psychiatry at Morehouse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nSo, he took me under his wings, he mentored me. Getting to, didn\u2019t [you ask] a question about mentors on there? So, he mentored me. He named me chief resident. I met a Black forensic psychiatrist \u2013 he took me under his wings \u2018cause we got introduced into \u2013 every one of us had to do what we called scut work of seeing the jail inmates from the Fulton County Jail a half day a week when we were second year residents. So, I got interested in forensic psychiatry, \u2018cause mind you, I was gonna do child psychiatry, remember?
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Right. Right.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: I got interested in correctional psychiatry at an African American psychiatrist who did all these evaluations at the jail. So, I ended up doing my elective, my third and fourth year, under him in forensics, and started doing a lot of jail work, and stuff and blah, blah, blah. So, at that point I had two African American male mentors. Dr. Alfred \u2013 so, as I finished up [residency] Dr. Alfred said, \u201cOkay. This is what \u2013 come on over with me to Morehouse.\u201d And Morehouse was a two-year med school at that point, and so I was one of the first part-time faculty members at Morehouse and it was a two-year school. So, I got to meet Dr. Sullivan, and Dr. Satcher, and all those people when it was all brand new, two years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Amazing.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: So, I stayed on as part-time faculty member at Emory on the psychiatry and law service, started my private practice, ended up doing private forensic cases \u2018cause my mentor would refer cases to me. I worked part-time in the jail, part-time in the prison, part-time private practice downtown Atlanta with somebody else. Ended up in a high rise doing part-time private, always did part-time private practice in Atlanta, and built the forensic practice, but still under the tutelage of my mentor. Stayed on at Morehouse part-time, also was part-time at Emory for a while, but just stayed on at Morehouse. And so, when I was \u2013 as a part-time faculty member I ended up mentoring several African American residents that came through who are now forensic psychiatrists.<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yes.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: [One is now] Medical Director for the state of Georgia.<\/p>\n
\nAnd so, I laugh \u2018cause my company is now doing some [work in Georgia]. He\u2019s the client, and I\u2019m putting it together. So, I\u2019m talking to my folks, and they\u2019re talking about doctor so and so. I said, \u201cSo, Dr. So and so\u201d and [we] do all our behind the scenes talking. It\u2019s like \u201cNo, I got this.\u201d And he goes, \u201cShe doesn\u2019t know what she\u2019s talking about.\u201d I said, \u201cJust come and talk to me.\u201d (Laughs)<\/p>\n
\nSo, somebody said, \u201cWhat\u2019re you talking about?\u201d I said, \u201cHe used to be one of my residents, so just leave that alone. You don\u2019t understand, he was one of my residents.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nI have had to recuse myself for some stuff at work \u2018cause the expert in a lawsuit in a jail [was my student], \u201cOh, you need to be Dr. So and so!\u201d It\u2019s like, \u201cNo, I\u2019m recusing myself \u2018cause he was one of my students.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Like, \u201cI already know.\u201d (Laughs)<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: So I\u2013<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: So, you\u2019ve taken a lot of mentees under your wing?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Well and it just happens naturally. And it\u2019s what you do, the interim chair, Department of Psychiatry at Morehouse, is a former mentee of mine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: Very and \u2013she\u2019s one of those 40 Under 40 who is just like, \u201cWoo!\u201d She\u2019s just, you know, written books \u2013<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Classic, does all things.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: \u2013the whole nine yards.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yes.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. Just phenomenal woman. And so, you know, you stick out your chest and say, \u201cYeah, I know her.\u201d But, yeah. So that was so residency \u2013 so yeah, Emory was good in a sense of all the people that I met. So the yeah it was a very mixed residency program, but yeah like I said, I had a Black chief of service and he named me chief resident. So, that\u2019s where I got my administrative experience from.<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Great.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: And then Morehouse. Yeah.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah. So, you went to Morehouse after the residency at Emory for two years, right? Do I have that order right?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: No, no Morehouse was a two-year medical school.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Two-year medical school, okay.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Which you probably don\u2019t know anything about.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yes!<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: Morehouse. Yeah, the way med schools are started, Morehouse was one of the newest \u2013 there are many more new med schools that are started in the last 10 to 15 years than then. That was 1982 when I finished residency program. Morehouse, had its, maybe their third [class] \u2013 they only had year one, year two, they had nothing else.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Okay, okay.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: And then, at the third year you had to go somewhere else to do your third and fourth year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Ok.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: So, when I went to Morehouse it was a two-year med school, but that was after I finished my residency program. I started teaching didactics at Morehouse, and so I\u2019ve watched Morehouse grow from being\u2013<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: A two-year med school to a four-year \u2013<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: A two-year med school.<\/p>\n
\nAnd I\u2019m still adjunct faculty at Morehouse. From being a two-year med school, to residencies, and many different areas. And the young lady I was talking about just got their first fellowship program approved by the ACGME for Child Psychology, so the first fellowship at Morehouse. And so yeah. So a lot of the psychiatry faculty at Morehouse either we trained together, or they were on faculty at Emory for a while and then switched over to Morehouse. Actually, one of the guys who ended up being chair of family practice, or was in charge of family practice residency training, he and I were in med school together at Chapel Hill, and he ended up at Morehouse. And so, we got stories after stories.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah. Stories for days, that\u2019s beautiful. I love all the connections, and all the growth coming from the connections. Yeah. And you\u2019re speaking on this a little bit already, but how does being a Black physician matter in your workplace, family, and community? So, you talked a little bit about \u2013<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: Ooo! (Laughs)<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: \u2013 being a mentor.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Well, it\u2019s kinda interesting, I was in \u2013 when I was in Atlanta I stayed in Atlanta. I moved in \u201979, did my residency training, stayed there in private practice, and I left in \u201996. So, let me just talk about Atlanta for a while, then I\u2019ll talk about the rest \u2018cause it was fascinating. Atlanta is a very interesting place \u2018cause it\u2019s a haven for Black professionals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yes.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: It was very, very easy to network in Atlanta, so I did a lot of part-time jobs, and like I said, I had a private practice. But I was always in practice with somebody else, either a psychologist, and we had several people working in the office, or I started out with another psychiatrist, but then I did my own thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s a little \u2013 it\u2019s a job here, a job there. I was the psychiatrist for Spelman [College] for a while, \u2018cause you know, so when the ladies would get into their real bad problems, so you know, they would call me up, and I\u2019d see them in my private practice, and their parent\u2019s insurance would pay. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, I worked in jails, and prisons part-time. I ended up being the lead psychiatrist at Fulton County Jail, which is the big jail downtown Atlanta. I worked at a state prison system part-time, you know, two or three days a week, guaranteed money while you do your private practice in the afternoons and on weekends. And I ended up, my mentor, gave me \u2013 some \u2013 a case, and he still mentored me, he did what\u2019s called prison litigations.<\/p>\n
\nSo, they needed experts to work with attorneys with inmates who were suing over inadequate mental health services, so he taught me how to do that. When he couldn\u2019t do the cases, he would give the extra ones to me, so that\u2019s how I got started doing that. I did that for 20 years.<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Oh wow.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: Of course, when I got tired, I gave them to some of my mentees. (Laughs)<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Right, right. (Laughs)<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: So, it\u2019s, that\u2019s how it goes. So, I did that as a part of my private practice, so I got to see a lot of jails and prisons all over the country, be an expert. I presented on working with women in prisons in Australia at an international corrections healthcare meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nSo, I started going to a lot of professional meetings when I was in private practice, be that corrections or psychiatry, and that\u2019s where you really meet people, and network. And that\u2019s where I found the Black Psychiatrists of America. And so, that was, again, that cadre of wherever we work. Okay, sometimes we just needed to be with the Black folks. So, in Atlanta wherever I worked there tended to be lots of Black folks, not all Black folks, but it was just, it was just very comfortable. I don\u2019t care what setting I was in. Just \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: With your colleagues, patients? Yeah.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. And you know, people doing well, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, so that was Atlanta. I mean, I ended up being the Mental Health Director for Georgia Department of Corrections, so I had \u2013 and then I worked in what we call operations. I was a deputy commissioner for three years \u2018cause I had another mentor, this was a White guy this time. He was the commissioner who named me, and he protected, and he actually had my back, and protected me. It was only after I left that I find out all the stuff he kept, all the good ol\u2019 boys away from me. So, I was one of those first women deputy commissioners in corrections, \u2018cause corrections is good ol\u2019 boy, paramilitary environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAnd whoever heard of a doctor being a deputy commissioner in corrections? That\u2019s not what you do. He had his Ph.D., educated, and he\u2019s still with us \u2013 he\u2019s still alive, he\u2019s still one of my mentors now.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Great. how inspiring.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: So, there again. Yeah. But it\u2019s the mentorship, and you don\u2019t realize how important that is until you hear people\u2019s stories about people who bring you along, and then protect you. Just, \u201cOkay, give me a seat at the table.\u201d But as a friend of mine said, \u201cBut you gotta give me the fork too, you can\u2019t just sit me at the table.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: And even when you\u2019re not at the table, like who\u2019s gonna bring your name up at the table \u2013<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: Right.<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: \u2013 so you can get a seat at the table?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Right. yeah. So, and I think I have very seldom had to go look for a job because it usually came my way. But Dr. Alfred, my mentor from Emory and Morehouse told me, he said, \u201cNever do anything full-time.\u201d And I always remember that. And that\u2019s not my personality, I get bored pretty quickly, but he told me never do anything full-time. So, that was way back in the 1980 when he told me that, so I still live by that, never do anything full-time. Only reason I\u2019m still with this company for so long \u2018cause it keeps changing, it changes every day, so it\u2019s just never a dull moment, never the same thing.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: What company are you with now? Cause you said you were recently \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: I\u2019ll tell you about that.<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Okay.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: I\u2019ve been with this company for 17 years, that\u2019s another whole chapter in my life. (Laughs)<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: (Laughs) Okay.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: So, before we get to that part, so I got married in \u201996, married a guy that lived in Jersey. So, I left Atlanta and moved to New Jersey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Okay.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: And so, I was still doing some consulting work, was not doing \u2013that\u2019s when I closed my private practice. That was the first time I closed private practice. So, it\u2019s like, \u201cOkay. What am I gonna do?\u201d I did not wanna do private practice anymore \u2018cause now the world of managed care, \u2018cause I grew up before managed care. Through managed care, it\u2019s like all my partners gone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nI went work full-time for corrections, and just did a little bit of private practice. So, when I left Atlanta, I was full-time. No. That job had gone away, I take that back. That\u2019s a whole political thing. But, anyway, I moved, and I ended up working part-time at a women\u2019s prison in Jersey, and then I worked at a \u2013 I was the mental health director in Philadelphia with a company that I had worked for \u2013 private company that does health and mental health services in jails and prisons. But I had worked for them in Atlanta part-time, went to work for them full-time in Jersey, I mean in Philly as the mental health director for the Philadelphia jail, which was about a 6,000 bed jail at that time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAnd so, three years later the same company needed a mental health director at Rikers Island in New York, and I ended up taking that job. So, then I \u2013 instead of having a nice 40-minute commute against traffic, as I was living in Central Jersey at that time near Princeton, I then had a two-and-a-half-hour drive north to New York.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: With traffic.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yes, with traffic. So, I ended up working at Rikers for three years, but I was a mental health director at Rikers Island. So I had given up \u2013<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Tell me about that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. Huh?
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: I said, tell me about that.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: I don\u2019t know what there is to say about that. (Both laugh) Except Rikers is 10 jails, at the time 16,000 offenders. Every jail had its own administration, so I had 10 mental health groups, 10 mental health units, 10 mental health teams, \u2018cause every jail had its own team. So, I was a mental \u2013 my job was really to navigate. I was \u2013 I navigated the politics between the VP of the private company, the warden over Rikers Island, and all the city people which were our clients. I had a chief psychiatrist who took care of the internal stuff. I took care of all the external crap to keep that away from my staff so they could do their work. And that was pretty much how Philadelphia worked, but when I was in Georgia Department of Corrections, that was my job, to keep the snakes and [piranhas] away from my staff.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nSo, I got to learn the politics of corrections, just there\u2019s the politics of medicine, and there\u2019s politics of any industry in which you work. As a healthcare company within the corrections, those of us that work in those management positions have to, as physician executives, you have to learn the politics of medicine and you have to understand the politics of corrections. So, that was Rikers.<\/p>\n
\nAnd I got a call, a cold-call from somebody here in Florida, and I didn\u2019t \u2013 the name was funny \u2013 I had never heard of Boca Raton. And I was just getting tired of the commute at Rikers, and it was a cold-call, and long story short, I took the job.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nThe guy who hired me is the CEO of the company that I work for now, but there were only five of them in the office when he hired me. I made six. And we were very small, but it was connected to a larger company, and that was 17 and a half years ago. So, that\u2019s how I got to Florida. And that company has, we split off, got bought by somebody else, bought by somebody else again, and I am now the chief psychiatric officer for Wellpath. And we cover about 300,000 lives, in 34 states, and we have a jails division, we have the state prison system division. We have, it\u2019s called Recovery Solutions, but it\u2019s pretty much psychiatric hospitals \u2013 we manage the hospitals from top to bottom, everything.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nThey give us \u2013 the state gives us a lump sum of money, and we manage the hospitals. We have sexually violent predators who are doing jail-based competency restoration program, we\u2019re buying psychiatric rehab facilities, we have some private for-profit psychiatric hospitals. And so, I manage all the psychiatry for all of those \u2013 for actually for the whole company. So I have \u2013 someone oversees corrections for me, but we don\u2019t have enough middle managers, so I end up doing some direct oversight. And he [the CEO] does a lot of direct oversight, I end up doing some. But so, I think you might know when in the [prior] email I said, \u201cOkay. This is a week for me being a road warrior.\u201d \u2018Cause prior to COVID, I was actually on I was on a plane more than I was at home.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Really?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Oh, yeah. The year before COVID, I was \u2013 we were managing the Anchorage Psychiatric Institute, and so I was traveling to and from Anchorage probably every third week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Wow.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: Staying the week. And to tell you how much of a road warrior I am, see the way I talk. And what I get into is, \u201cOkay. How many Delta miles do I have? Okay. Can I get bumped up to that seat? And how many hotel miles?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yes.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: And yeah, \u201cI am lifetime titanium in the league in Marriott,\u201d so those are our conversations. (Laughs)<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yes. (Laughs)<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: So, when I tell you I am a road warrior, I am a road warrior. Those are the conversations, and it\u2019s like, \u201cNo, your suitcase is too big.\u201d You gotta have the suitcase \u2018cause I\u2019m not standing in that baggage claim. \u201cOh you\u2019re packing that suitcase for seven days?\u201d It\u2019s like, \u201cYeah. What you think?\u201d\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yes, absolutely.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah, so no. And I guess I\u2019ve been doing that. So, with that company, it has grown, and with this division, Recovery Solutions. I do the whole company, but I grew up in Recovery Solutions. That\u2019s where I started, so they are part of my group, so I\u2019ve been involved in every one of their openings except one. So, all of those things I just named I\u2019ve been involved of the start-ups of all of those, \u2018cause a lot of the things that I mentioned, we actually start them from scratch.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Cause you \u2013<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: So, it\u2019s been a very fascinating.<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: \u2013You\u2019ve been a part of them as well, so you\u2019ve expanded over the years.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. And like I said, the guy who\u2019s a CEO of the entire company, he hired me, and there were only, he only had, he was one of five people, and I made six. He was the one that did the cold-call, and it was only three or four years later did I find out how he got my name. He got my name from somebody I\u2019d never met, but who knew who I was. I knew who he was, he knew who I was, but we had never met, and he gave my guy my name and number.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Amazing.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Cold-call, so no, I did not apply for the job. (Laughs)
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Amazing. So, out of all the cities, all the jobs that you\u2019ve had, which one would you say has been your most formative, and most, you know like, \u201cI\u2019m happy with this. I\u2019m proud of this\u201d?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Probably the one I have now. It is very frustrating. It is now, I just celebrated 40 years of practice July 1.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Congratulations.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: So, I tell folks when I say I\u2019m a tired old lady now, I\u2019m a tired old lady. (Laughs) And I can finally \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Busy doing all the great work.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: But the trying times of things I didn\u2019t like only prepared me to do what I\u2019m doing now. And I realize, I mean, I probably realized that about 10 or 15 years ago because somebody said to me, \u201cHow do you know?\u201d I said and I\u2019ll tell you now, my answers I\u2019m supposed to know, at this \u2013 if you\u2019ve been doing something as long as I have, then you\u2019re supposed to know. So, it\u2019s like, \u201cWhy are you asking me that question?\u201d \u201cI\u2019m supposed to know.\u201d If I don\u2019t know now, then it\u2019s like I shouldn\u2019t have been doing this. Yeah, I\u2019m supposed to know. But probably because this \u2013 and my husband will tell you, and actually my mentor in the Georgia Department of Corrections, he and I used to laugh because every three years we changed jobs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nSo, if you looked at my resume its three years, three years, it\u2019s like changing jobs. And when I went to work for Rikers Island it was three years, and then I got this job in Florida, and my husband did not follow me immediately. And I said, \u201cWell, how come you didn\u2019t move?\u201d he said, \u201c\u2019Cause you\u2019re always changing in three years, and I figured you were gonna come back.\u201d (Laughs)
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: That is so funny. (Laughs)
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: I never thought about that. And it was so, he finally moved down here about seven or eight years ago, he\u2019s like, \u201cWell, I guess you\u2019re not coming back to Jersey.\u201d (Laughs) \u2018Cause I would go home on weekends, so it was and I hadn\u2019t realized but every three years, but I\u2019ve been with this company for 17 and a half years.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: That\u2019s a long stretch with \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Oh yeah. I\u2019m serious about the three years.<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah! (Laughs)<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: Except the private practice, I stayed in the private practice, but still stuff I did within the private practice was three years, three years, three years.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Right. Different roles in the private practice.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Mhm. But those different roles prepared me for much bigger roles.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Right, right, everything \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. So, I think so the skills that I learned that prepared me for this job were really more of the executive skills, the negotiations, the compromising, managing people, being able to talk to the secretary, or the president of whatever, whatever, whatever. And be with the clients, you know, the walk-in, you know, and not be in intimidated, \u201cBeen there and done that.\u201d You know, kinda like, \u201cOh you have?\u201d \u201cYeah. Uh-huh.\u201d (Laughs)
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yes, I have. (Laughs)
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yes, been there done that. And so, yeah. So, probably this job, but this job has changed so that\u2019s why I haven\u2019t gotten bored.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Right. From what you mentioned, like it\u2019s ever expanding, it\u2019s something new for you.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. It\u2019s still growing and it\u2019s, I guess, about seven or eight years ago the company that I was hired into was a publicly traded company on Wall Street. And our small division had to break off because they were becoming a real estate investment trust instead of being publicly traded, and you could not have any healthcare holdings. So, within 12 months I learned more about high finance than I had in my entire life. And since then, that small company I told you about has now been privately held by a private equity.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Which is better?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Huh?
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Which is better?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Which? Are you asking me?
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: No, yeah. That was a question at the end of that. It\u2019s better to be in that position than the latter? No?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Three years from now when you finish up, I want you to tell me how much finance they teach you in med school and how much business they teach you in med school.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: I will let you know; I will follow up.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: I ended up getting my MBA when I was in Philadelphia, I got it online, and I\u2019ll tell you why. Because it was sticking spreadsheets under my nose, and talking high finance. I had no clue what they were talking about. \u201cDoc, you gotta control this, and you gotta control that.\u201d It\u2019s like what the heck is that?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah, I always tell my friends \u2013<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: So I got my MBA.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: \u2013 I think it should be something in high school so it\u2019s accessible to everyone what they teach you about finance, mortgage, credit, like all that.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: So, when you ask, when someone asks me, \u201cWell, I wanna go get my master\u2019s\u201d get your M.D., and then folks wanna get their Master of Public Health. I said, \u201cLet me give you a piece of advice, get your MBA first, then you can go get your master\u2019s in public health.\u201d I said, \u201c\u2019Cause whatever you do, if you go into private practice, you\u2019re gonna be dealing with somebody who wants to buy that practice, or you gotta figure out how you gonna finance that practice. And you gotta understand.\u201d I tell people right now even from my private practice, I still got money floating in the universe \u2018cause I didn\u2019t understand just all of that stuff.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAnd so, you got managed care, you can \u2013 I mean, I\u2019ve been a private contractor for I don\u2019t know how much, but it\u2019s just understanding what that means. So, to ask me the question \u2013 being a part of a company that\u2019s private equity or publicly traded, when it was publicly traded at the management level, they gave us stock options. So, you still needed to understand how stock options worked, \u2018cause they mature after a certain period of time, then you could cash in. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Private equity, I was, when, and I was lucky again, the guy who hired me, mentored me, and protected me. When the small group broke off from the big group, I was the only African American who was invited to buy shares into the private equity.<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yes.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: And I think I\u2019m still about the only one now. It\u2019s probably at 1.5 billion dollars\u2019 worth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Wow.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: I mean, the company worth.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah. You have a share of it.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: But we don\u2019t see anything until they rollover. And so, when I say rollover, private equity buys a company, and they hold it, they want the company make money, and then the principals will sell. And they got all \u2013 they have maybe hundreds of companies in their portfolio, and then they sell, and that\u2019s how they make their profit. So, they\u2019re selling to another private equity group.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Right. And that\u2019s what the rollover is when they do that.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. And those of us who have any interest and they don\u2019t call them shares, I don\u2019t even know what they call them, but they\u2019re not shares. Shares is in publicly traded companies. But you don\u2019t see anything until \u2013 and then you can leave your money, or you can take it. And you wanna see it. But even \u2013 and I didn\u2019t feel so bad when we were being \u2013 when we were invited \u2013 they had these high flouting finance people come in and explain this to us who were going to be invited in. I didn\u2019t feel bad at all \u2018cause it was \u2013 I looked around the room, it was like the lawyers, all the high flouting guys \u2013 they didn\u2019t know any more than I knew. (Laughs)\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah (Laughs)<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: Because they had always worked at the publicly traded companies, so now we were talking private equities.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Private is a lot different. Yeah.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. It was a very, it was fascinating. So that\u2019s when \u2013 and I still have the same accountant that got me out of a pile of doodoo in Atlanta. She\u2019s still in Atlanta, and I still have her. And we\u2019ve been together, what, 30 some odd years? But everything we do now is remote, so I\u2019ve watched even that part. It used to be take all the receipts to the accountant \u2013<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah \u2013<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: \u2013 now everything is remote, via apps. \u201cHey, you gotta upload all of this and blah, blah, blah.\u201d I just got a note from her, so she has been a friend for a long time, so it\u2019s fascinating to me. I still have my Atlanta roots, so you ask me what I\u2019ve done, but I still go to Atlanta to get my hair done, that tells you just how tight Atlanta is. (Laughs)
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Which is phenomenal by the way.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: I will tell, I will tell my hair \u2013 \u201cNo. I still go to Atlanta to get my hair done.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Your hair looks amazing.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: So, I will tell her that. Yeah. And my accountant is still in Atlanta, but you know you find those folks, and you just hang onto them.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Right. Stay with them.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: So, I think of all the places I\u2019ve lived, Atlanta has been the most supportive, and still just those long-term connections.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah that seems to be where you got a lot of your connections.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Oh yeah. And that\u2019s where I grew. Yeah just, but that\u2019s so. And here I am. So, COVID, everything went virtual pretty much, and even for us. And so, we\u2019re now somewhat back on the road. And so, it\u2019s\u2026
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Back to somewhat of a normal. Well, I have \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Well, I don\u2019t know about normal. It\u2019s the new normal.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah, the new normal.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: The new normal, yeah. So, anyway, so any other particular questions? \u2018cause \u2013
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah. Couple more questions to wrap up.<\/p>\n
\nDr. Newkirk: Sure.<\/p>\n
\nQuiara Shade: Or I\u2019ll ask you one question \u2018cause we kinda talked about what you were proud of throughout your career. But what advice would you give to current Black medical students?\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: I think I\u2019ve kinda talked about it. You need to find a mentor, hang onto each other, and you need to learn something about finances. (Laughs)
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yes, get your MBA.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Well, you don\u2019t have to get your MBA necessarily, but you need to learn something about finances. \u2018Cause no matter what you do, and more, and more residents who are coming out are going, are finding, are becoming employed versus doing something on their own. I think the other thing I would tell \u2013 you want advice for students, right?
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah, for students.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Is to really talk to physicians who are doing different things. I started out in private practice and figured that\u2019s what I was gonna do, but I guess I\u2019ve always had a knack of wanting to do something different, not quite knowing what that different was. And I tell folks that you have to be left brain thinker and like working outside of a box. If you like things settled, and don\u2019t like change, then you need to probably, you know, be employed, and settle down, and just work. But if you like the excitement, there\u2019s a lot of things that physicians are doing that will probably even be different when you finish your residency training.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nI think technology has advanced tremendously far since that time I was, you know 40 years ago, so I think even medical technology, looking into IT, just, you know, the electronic health records, robotics, you know, even as physicians.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAnd I think medical students need to really understand their special places. What bothers me more than anything else, even though I respect nurse practitioners, a lot of people are beginning to equate nurse practitioners as physicians, especially as they get their PhDs. And their PhDs are in nursing, not medicine, but they walk on the units in their white coats, and they call them doctors, \u2018cause they are a doctor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAnd just I think as you proceed, you\u2019re probably gonna be doing some rotations side by side with nurse practitioners and PAs, and you need to think about, \u201cHow am I gonna distinguish myself as a physician?\u201d \u2018Cause I think that\u2019s gonna be one of your biggest challenges. Is the \u2013 I mean we used to always call them\u2026 Well, some places call them advanced practice practitioners. Like, \u201cWell, what\u2019s that?\u201d We call them \u2013 they were ancillary; they were more like helpers. And now, a lot of states, they can practice on their own. They can practice autonomously without any physician oversight. So, I would just say just be very observant and be mindful about that. Otherwise, I think \u2013<\/p>\n
\n\u2013 and yes, healthcare is gonna change, but I just don\u2019t see if you compare your training to what the training is for nurse practitioners, and I think that\u2019s where you have to look. You have to look objectively. I mean, you start your clinical training in your third and fourth year, and so by the time you will finish up you will have your four years of residency. You\u2019re gonna have at least six years of clinical experience hands on if you do psychiatry. Some you may have five. They have one.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yeah. It\u2019s a huge difference, right?
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Yeah. But when you look at how they\u2019re being promoted and touted, that\u2019s not talked about. So, I can\u2019t think of anything else. Have fun.
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Yes, of course. What you gave was amazing. Thank you again for taking the time to sit down.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Thank you, I appreciate that.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: I\u2019m gonna go ahead and stop the recording.
\n\u00a0
\nDr. Newkirk: Okay.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nQuiara Shade: Stop recording.
\n\u00a0
\n[End of Audio]\n
\nDuration: 86 minutes<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dr. Newkirk: How do you pronounce your first name? \u00a0 Quiara Shade: Quiara. \u00a0 Dr. Newkirk: Okay, Quiara. \u00a0 Quiara Shade: All right. So, today is Thursday October 13th, and I\u2019m here with Dr. Cassandra Newkirk. Cassandra, is that right? Is that the correct name? \u00a0 Dr. Newkirk: Yes. \u00a0 Quiara Shade: Okay. And tell … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2384,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"acf-tax-class-year":[6],"class_list":["post-2353","alumni-interview","type-alumni-interview","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","acf-tax-class-year-6","odd"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/md\/baep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/alumni-interview\/2353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/md\/baep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/alumni-interview"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/md\/baep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/alumni-interview"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/md\/baep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/md\/baep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"acf-tax-class-year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/md\/baep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/acf-tax-class-year?post=2353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}