don't you have her have saxophone. now there were three, al that, tenor, and guitar. what do you do with three girls trying to play instruments? luckily, my father worked as a janitor, and the 389th was stationed there. many of the members were trained at julliard and some of the best, he asked them to come by and teach us. we were taught by some of the greatest musician that is there were. there's two saxophones and a guitar. one the teachers said it'd be nice to have some rhythm. my father looked around and get get linda. she likes to beat up on things. linda started playing the drums. we were called the thornette. we played at the pta meet lings and social events.

my father said, great, i want to be with my daughters. he tried to place the upright base. he went to lessons, my mother went and sat very quietly in the back. as my father was trying to learn the upright base. my teacher said, mr. thornton, you got to practice. you can't come in here and try to learn. you have to practice. she just sat and listened. next thing you know, mom is on bass and dad is out. we had to change to the thornton sisters, we wanted to be more mature. we named ourself the thornton sisters. now in those days, i know a lot of you know "american idol" yes, for sure. before that was "star search" within all of these are amateur shows that basically that give the amateur a chance to star and to be a star. well, back in the 1950s, there was the same sort of kind of amateur show called ted mac. and the original amateur hour.

by then we were playing jazz. we should apply and audition. go up there and see what we can do. we said, okay, daddy. so we bent. believe it or not, we are on. what i want to show the wonderful audience that you have to go back now. this is historical. :

>> oh, yeah, geritol. [inaudible] ♪ >> [inaudible] >> that's my mother. >> [inaudible] [inaudible]

♪ ♪ >> she's 14 on the tenor sax. i'm the one clapping my hands. stage clapping. here i am at 11 years of age on alto. ♪ this is jenette on the guitar. she's 13 # years old. the next person you see is linda. she's 9 years old on the drums. ♪

♪ ♪ [applause] >> oh, well, thank you, thank you. well, you know, after basically making the amateur hour. my father said, oh, you kids are good. let's try the next step. the next step was the apollo theater. some of you are too young, but show time at the apollo, it was the se base chan for black

entertainment. on wednesday nights, they had amateur night. if you won four weeks in a row there, you could win a paid week with the stars. now, the operative word is "paid". we went through four weeks there, one the first week, second week, and the third week, and then the rules changed to six weeks. my father got upset and still it was six weeks. the thornton sisters won six consecutive weeks at the apollo theater in harlem and won our week with the stars. he said, girls, girls, sit down. you're young. people are fickle. you have to be here every day. we're here for a reason, not a season. the fact of the matter is if you're educated and you can do

something the rest of your life. if you are a musician, break your lip, fracture your fingers, you're out. if you're an athlete and get injured, you're out. if you're a doctor and educated, they come to you. that's what we want for you. we went back to study. several years later, we were cutting records with atlanta records. we said this is fabulous. our names are everywhere. i said, dad, forget the doctor stuff. we're famous. famous? what did i tell you before. again, two years passed, and we were 15 and 16 years of age then. he said, girls, sit down. this is my dad again. he said you look good, nice figures, everybody loves you, but you got to look down the road, down the road when you are 50 and 60 years of age, gray hair, wrinkled, arthritis, trying to blow a sax phone.

it's not a pretty sight to see. if they call you dr. thornton, that's what we want for you. okay, we went back to study. in the audience at the brooklyn frox, a jenman from princeton university said, mr. thornton, we want your daughters to play at the cap and gown play. for 13 years, my sisters and i and my mom were in a little band up and down the east coast performing at every college we could to generate money to pay for our tuition to go to college. that's 13 years every friday night, saturday afternoon, saturday night, every sunday afternoon. we were on the road. mother said we have the money now, but you still have to be smart. on the weekends, we performed. on the weekdays, we studied, and that's the way it was for 13

years, and i performed with my family until i was straight through a resident in ob/gyn. we all went to mama's college in new jersey. why? because it was five minutes away from long branch, new jersey. we lived in long branch, and father said that's as far as he wanted to go. we planned howard, and he said no, that's too far away to keep the band together. you can go to college, do well, but the dream still had to be realized. i went to a small teacher's college, but my professors here were dedicated, and from that university, i went to columbia, college of physicians and surgeons which was basically a quantum leap to an ivy league university, the first college to award the md degree in the colonies. this is when i wrote the second

book, "something to prove." i want to read some excerpts because you think you got the brass ring, you are a doctor. i'm a doctor from columbia, what do you do? again, i just wanted to read to you what doctors do, and this is from the first chapter, first page of something to prove. chapter one, the subbasement and the grass ceiling. new york hospital cornell medical center, early 1980s, "i knew in medicine you'd be respected. when a man is sick, he doesn't look to see what color you are. he wanted to be made well." donald thornton. come to the hospital if your water breaks or anything else goes wrong. i always told me patients we'll take good care of you, even if you're not in labor. not all of them listened. mary paulson didn't listen.

mary, pregnant with her first child was in her early 30s, full of life and strong-leftwilled. he water broke two days earlier without contractions. against doctor's orders, mine, she just stayed home. it wasn't until she felt feverish she came to the medical center in manhattan where i was the director of clinical services for the hospital. i could see right away there was an infection in our unit uterus, a dangerous situation for mother and baby. i started her on antibiotics and induced labor. everything was smooth at first, two centimeters dielated, then four, and then fully die lited. we administered the een derl, and then soon after, she delivered her baby. it's a boy! i asked if she wanted to put him

to her breast, and she was too tired. we were done except for delivering the play placenta, or so i thought. usually that follows the baby right out, but it takes 30 minutes. the clock ticked, 25 minutes, 30 minutes, nothing happened. the play placenta is just being stubborn i joked, but in the back of my mind, i was thinking, please, god, don't let this be placenta acree that. it's a relatively rare, but fatal complication. it happens when it's embedded too deeply in the uterus and causes complications. give me more fluids and called for a medicine to cause the uterus to contract. i told the nurse to get me a glove to go in and remove this if necessary.

a moment later, it came out, but mary was still bleeding. it's normal to see a little blood after the placenta is delivered, but nothing like this. this was the red sea. something was very, very wrong. what could be causing mary's bleeding? i went through a checklist in my mind. could part still be lodged inside? get me a tool, i called the nurse, and use the instrument to scrape the walls of the lining. everything was clean, and mary was still bleeding. whether it was because of the infection causing a reaction or because something else was in play, mother nature had thrown us a curve ball. she complained of feeling lightheaded. her pulsed raced to 120 beets per minute. she was going into shock. we were louising -- losing her. only once had one of my maternal

patients died. it had been a long time before when i was chief resident at roosevelt hospital, but i could still picture every awful minute in my mind. it was july 19,no one could havn interfered with blood clotting after she delivered. i got the call at 3:14 a.m.. i had been at home across the street in our apartment on west 59th street, but i slept in my coat just in case there was an emergency. when they called saying she was hemorrhaging, i was ready to go. i didn't wait for the elevator, ran down 24 flights of stairs, and was at the hospital in less than five minutes. it didn't matter. we tried everything, and we couldn't stop the bleeding. i watched her die on the table. nothing at that time could have

saved jasmine. i knew that, and yet i swore to myself never again. yet, here i was close to losing mary. the bed was filled with blood. mary was in shock and not fully conscious, but she mumbled my name and explained i had to go in not knowing how much of what i said she could hear or comprehend. give the scalpel i snapped, and made an incision from her belly button down to her pubis. i tried to massage the use ruse externally to make it contract. we have to find another way to stop the bleeding. i had my assistant take over the massage when i went in one of the larger arteries that feeds into the uterus. i clamped it shut, but still, she was bleeding.

normal blood pressure is 120 over 80. pal p means the second number is barely audible. it's 40 over. we have to remove the uterus i said. my heart thank at this thought. this is a young woman giving birth to her first child. if i perform this, there would be no second child. if i didn't, she might just have minutes to live. before i took that irreversible step though, i wanted to make one more attempt to stop the hemorrhage involving a difficult procedure, one i performed twice before, tieing off an artery deep in the pelvis surrounded by other vital organs. time was running out. i moved the bowel and made my way, there it was. pumping away.

[no audio] >> i could hang around, and the word obstetrics means to stand by. that's what it means. many hours of standing by, waiting for a patient to deliver, interrupted by five or six minutes of chaos. i became the doctor my mother and father wanted me to be. i have the brass ring. i am dr. thonton, but i'll tell you the title of the new book is another reason why even though i

thought the playing field was level, i looked as i got the brass ring and found there was another rock wall i had to climb, and that consistented of racism, sexism, and mail chauvinism. you can wine, or you can go and do what you're trained to do. when i was working at a hospital in new jersey, i was minding my own business, walking through the delivery, and a nurse yelled come in, you need to come in. it's not my patient. i didn't know what was going on, but what's happening is there's another obstetrician in trouble. now, the baby's head was down and not coming out and the baby's heart rate was going down. the doctor said get somebody, anybody, i need help. the nurse came out, dragged me in, and i came into the delivery room, and the obstetrician looked at me and said what is she going to do? all she saw or he saw was a

black woman. he did not know i was a double board certified female medicine specialist. i asked the nurse, may i have a forceps with a handle? she gave it to me. i said, excuse me, may i sat down? i applied the fore accepts and delivered the baby. my job was done, and the only person thanking me was the husband of the wife, not the obstetrician, but the husband. so that's what i'm saying, you don't expect to be loved, expect to be part of the in crowd, and yes, i'm a woman of color and something to prove is always something to prove. when you're a woman in a dominated male profession, you always have something to prove. again, life is life. me, i'm black, but you can be from the wrong country, the wrong school, short, fat, greek, it doesn't matter, but if you're not welcomed, what will you do

about it? you have something to prove. again, i'm a woman, a mother, and i'm a wife. with me, there's another layer of responsibility. now, we have powerful woman today. we have a surgeon general that's a woman. we have supreme court justices that are women. in my situation, there was another level of obligation and responsibility, and that is having kids. now, what do you do? again, at the same hospital, i delivered at 5:30 afternoon. i'm ripping off my clothes, what's for dinner, and a male colleague was in the doctor's lounge relaxing. i said, peter, it's 5:30, aren't you getting home? no, no, i'm sitting here, i'll let peggy feed and put down the kids and say good night. i said, well, that's not me. i am racing down route 80, what's for dinner, get the shoes for my son, and that's the

difference of being a woman, a woman professional, is that, yeah, our society expects us to be moms, but i loved and wanted to be an obstetrician, so my mother would always say no amount of success in your profession can ever make up for being a failure at home, and that's what i'm saying. my colleagues are wealth, may have children that are lost to drugs, suicide, emotional disturbans, but i knew what i had to do and decisions to make had to incorporate my children. now, the next excerpt from the book is about my children. what will the little kids do? i have a son and a daughter. my son is 32 years now and my daughter is 30. he was young once like you, and this excerpt is about my son. we'd given into his pleas for a anyone ten doe game. it seemed at first just like another toy. we said, sure, why not?

my husband got home at first and picked up the kids at school and took over for the nanny. between my responsibilities, my schedule was more jammed pack than my husband's and less predictable. babies come when they want to come, but hip replacements can get scheduled weeks or months in advance. arriving home tiredded from the hospital one day, i popped in on the kids downstairs playing with their electronic games. hi, kids. what are you doing? nothing. no hello, no nod, no reaction whatsoever. they sat there like little zombies, meze moriized by their anyone ten doe. we saw the image of a car pinging around an animated blue track. i wasn't thrilled to be treated

by my children like i didn't exist. i stepped in front of the tv. move, mom, get out of the way. i did as he asked, but as i made my u-turn behind them, i wondered how such a game could possibly be good for them. i went back downstairs and said i didn't want this to turn our children's minds into mush. he smiled and told me to relax. it's just a game, and kids need to play games. he had a point. it's a game. kids need to play games, but did they have to play that game? just as i had done in my studies and my career, i had fallen back on my parents' wisdom when raising my children. they are years ahead to how their daughter's childhood activities could help or hinder them as adults. i tried to think ahead too. one day, they would be applying for college. no matter how in depth they were

at it, this game would not impress anyone in the admissions committee. what would help my children develop, do well, and also have fun? they started piano lessons as toddlers and loved it. what game would make all of us happy? i timely came up with just the thing. chess. [laughter] kimmy was still too young for it, but this would challenge woody and stimulate his intellect. there was just one problem, i didn't know how to play and neither did surewood. i put an ad in the community paper. the following sunday, a few days before christmas, the doorbell rang. i opened up and found a young man on the doorstep carrying a composition book. he said his name was aviv freedman and came to the country from israel and lived on the next block about five houses away. i'm an israeli chess champion he

told me. my sister saw the ad mountain paper. i told him to come right on in. i took him downstairs to the family room with a large black coffee table made with an inlaid chess board. i introduced him to woody, showed him the chess pieces, and let them alone. i walked up the stairs and i could here him tell woody that piece was a pawn worth one point. at the end of the hour, i checked on them, and woody seemed engrossed in those little chess pieces as he had the zooming nintendo games. as i paid him for the lessons and arranged for him to come the following week, he said, you know, your son has a spark. even better, woody said he had fun. he was looking forward to his next lesson. hearing that was like getting an early christmas present. now, moving forward, woody was

doing well with his chess lessons and seemed to have a gift for the game, and soon the teacher said if he kept at it, he could compete in chess tournaments. i got woody an electronic chess game that he played between his lessons from mr. friedman. it had this annoying mechanical voice that would announce at the end of the game, i win, you lose. [laughter] how woody hated that announce. . he played against that machine for hours only to hear, "i win, you lose." [laughter] it frustrated him to no ends, then one day, woody beat the computer. at the end of the game, the annoying computer generated voice had a different message. "i lose, you win. [laughter] he was pleased with himself.

anyone going down to the living room, heard the mechanism feet in broken record mode, you lose, i win. that's the end of that chapter. what happened to woody? he's my first born, and he went to public school. we believe in public school and he went on from high school to harvard graduated went to physicians and surgeons. my son is a physician now studying neurosurgery. i'm smiling because when they were little kids in preschool i said maybe your grandfather was a janitor and ditch digger, but your dad and i are financially stable, and we can support you. you can be anything you want to be, card yowlings, radiologist, as long as there's an md behind that name. no problem, mom. straight on.

he was like the parent pleaser. woody in his chess before he went to harvard became the united states juneon open chess champion, the national high school chess champion, national everything chess champion because he loved chess, and chess was just the one thing to position himself so that he applied at many of the ivy league schools and was accepted to all he applied to. that's the first one. oh, it's just wonderful. my second's going to be the same way. no. my second born is kim. the rebel. she said there's too many doctors in the house anyway. you know the mantra. mom, music. she's a classically trained pianist. her first semester was premed and got her degree in studio art. i said, okay, what do you do

with that? i wanted to read a little thing about kim. kim is a second born, and i find the second borns are rebellious. now, in this part of the book, pretty soon kimmy began going to tournaments with her brother and dad, and mr. friedman said she was talented too. he said she was not obsessed as her brother. for her, it was a game, not a calling. any time she got cornered in a difficult match, instead of getting a way out of the predicament, she said, i'm tired now, you can win. [laughter] it was getting close to halloween, again, and kim wanted to wear a tee that turner costume to school. i put my foot down, i said, oh, no, you're not the wild woman, oh, no, not my daughter, absolutely not. she begged and pleaded, but i

wouldn't have it, i would not permit my child to be in the skimpy outfit. you can be a princess, and that's the end of that. a couple days later there was a chess tournament at manhattan chess club. my husband took them. you have to win the most out of five games to win. each game gets more difficult. woody did quite well, but kim lost her first two games. i knew she could have won one of them, but she wasn't even trying. put her on the phone i said, remember how daddy gave us insenttives to do our best. you want to be tina turner, i asked when she came on the phone? you win the next three games, and you can be tina turner. now, i admit i knew full well she didn't have a prayer.

if you couldn't win the easy games, she couldn't get the last three, but i wanted her to try. when he got back on the line, i explained this to him and said it was smart to at least give her something to strive for. i didn't give it another thought until a few hours later when sherwood called back saying kimmy won. he couldn't believe it himself, but he saw it. not only did she ace the next three games, but beat the player so many points above her, she should have been matched with bobby fisher. while i was happy she applied herself and won, i was less happy that i had to follow through on my promise. [laughter] i got the costume for her, two short leather minny skirts, jacket, a wig, and outlandishly long earrings. it wasn't bad enough she wore

that to school, but that day, kimmy's class went to hole any new hospital to show off their costumes to the little scik kids. i can only hope nobody realized that child dressed as a wild woman was the daughter of us doctors. that's my daughter kimmy. now, she got her degree in studio art. she goes, well, mom, i'm going to be a curator. i said that's fine. there's few and far betweens. she said i'm a stanford graduate, that's the way it is. after awhile, she couldn't meet her financial obligations from california, she made her way back to columbia, new york city, and she was accepted, took a gre, accepted, applied and accepted to columbia school of public health and got her masters in public health. i said that's great. she said that's great, but i know what you want.

i said, that's me, whatever you want to do is fine. she said, you're not happy. my daughter now is a first year medical student in medical school and wants to be a peed yatic reconstructive surgery to use her artistic wants and needs and talents to help children with cleft lips. yes, my sisters and i were donald's folly. we were a joke in our community, but my two children are donald's legacy, and that's what comes when you just keep going and keep trying. now, the last excerpt from the book i wanted to read to you is about my dad, and it starts many years after my mother had died, we took dad out for his birthday at shadow brook restaurants, one the high end restaurants we couldn't afford as kids. it was very elegant with waiters in tuxes and drinks served in

crystal. it didn't hurt it had some the best prime rib in new jersey. daddy was a meat and potatoes guy. my sister, linda, thedownest, came to town from maryland. she was an oral surgeon, in the dental core and army major. my other sister finished medical school after getting a degree in psychology and daddy expected her to be the first dr. thonton. the first to have the strips around her neck, but she rebelled and went her own way, so he must have been thrilled when she got her medical degree even if it came later than he hoped. it was awhile, but we were all there, just him and his girls again, the way daddy liked it. no kids, no husbands. the waiters already brought the is salad. he came to the table and

announced, there's a call for dr. thonton. some curious diners turned to see who that was. jenette, linda, and i rose from our chairs, and as we stood up, the look on his face could have lit up the entire eastern sea board. there wasn't a call, but i asked him to page dr. thornton during dinner because i wanted to see the wonderment on my father's face when three of his daughters stood up to answer. each of us was dr. thornton, the living proof that we had done what we set out to do. he marveled at us and couldn't believe it himself that he managed to achieve this impossible dream, all his work, all his sacrifice had paid off. he was too tough to cry, especially in front of us girls, but if there's a time when he came close, that was it, and i

knew it was the best birthday present we could have given him, and that ends chapter 2. now, -- [applause] >> oh, thank you, thank you. [applause] >> now, what happened to all these people i've been telling you about in the last half hour or so? what happened to the people, well, first, i'll tell you about my mom. my mom passed away at 61, the one who was the help me write my first book. i'm not an author, i deliver babies. she called me and said, oh, honey, it would be nice to have a book in the library. she didn't say a bookstore, but a library. who would have guessed you kids from the projects could have been anything, and just think you're a doctor. this tells people with a little faith, hope, and determination, you can be anything you want. i said, mom, i'm too busy

delivering babies, on call. i don't have time to write a book. she says, well, all i wanted was a book in the library. [laughter] so, yes, mom. i was stressful, but i was too busy to write a book. my mother died six months later, died in 1977, january 8, 1977, and from that time on, from 1977 to the time the first book was published, it took me 18 years to get that book published, but i got it published, and when the american library association named it the best book for young adults, i said, mommy, this book is for you. my mother said let your reach exceed your grasp or what's heaven for? let your aims be high even if fulfillment seems impossible. we tried, fulfilled, and it came impossible. what happened to my mother? working with the west virginia higher education commission and

with basically beckly and i worked with beckly, and i worked with bluefield state teacher's college, that's the college she was at, and she had to leave because she couldn't afford the last year, and in 2005, my mother's class had been given a doctorate. my father was too young to die, but he worked so hard, three jobs sometimes, would pump oil, then he would be digging ditches, and then a janitor. he said, i'd rather work hard. donald, if you work too hard, you'll kill yourself. i would rather work hard than to have my kids go through what i went through. my father said you can stop yourself, but don't let anybody define who you are. if the front door is closed, go around the back to get in.

if that's locked, go to the side, maybe there's a way. if the side window is closed, jump on the roof to get in, but don't give up, never, ever, ever give up, and that was my father. he was our moral compass. he had six girls, raised six girls, and today when children don't know up from down, priorities messed up, when a hero is a sandwich, and god stands for good overnight delivery, then we have problems in the society. my parents knew exactly how to guide us and where to go, and that was my dad. now, the tenor sax a phone player sadly died at the age of 48. she had two years of college to my father's shy grin, but she married, had a daughter, she has

a masters in social work, and she lives with her husband in california. my sister betty is a nurse ready to retire living in long branch in the same house that my mother and father built in long branch, new jersey. the troublemaker second born said, okay, daddy, i'm a doctor, i'm a doctor. she got a degree in psychology, and my father was not a well versed man or a sophisticated man. he's like what's an edd? a doctor in psychology. can you heal somebody? no, dad, it's a doctor in clinical psychology. he said that's not a real doctor. when my mom was sick in the hospital, one of the physicians came out said i know her daughter is a doctor, and i want to go over this with her and my oldest sister said i'm dr. thonson. he was talking about the drugs

he would be using, and my sister had a look on her face, and the doctor said what kind of doctor are you. she said i'm a doctor in clinical psychology. oh, it's your other sister, the real doctor. after having that for so many years of not being a real doctor, my sister at 32 years of age, applied, accepted, and entered the university school of medicine and got her md at the age of 36. she's a physician now, has double doctorate now living with her husband. now, what happened to me? i married my best friend. we met in medical school. now, i'm dr. thornton in honor of my father who didn't have a son. my husband is chairman of harlem hospital orthopedics, and we've been married for almost 37 years. thank you, thank you.

[applause] he is my rock, and at age 47, at age 47, that's what education has done for our family. we've always strive for education. my husband and i went back to school, back to columbia to get our masters in public health with regard to health policy and management, but what am i doing? i am here today to speak before you to say what have i done? i hopefully have changed stumbling blocks into steppingstones in order to achieve and arrive at whatever you want to be. i have two children, wonderful kids, and i'm very happy that i have two children because that is really the best, the best accomplishment that i've ever done. now, again, that's me. let's talk about linda the drummer. you saw the drummer who was 9 years of age. linda is my idol.

linda has three strikes against her. she was black, female, and weighed 300 pounds and was five foot one. she said, dad, dad, dad, they call me fat, a pig. my father said, linda, your brain is not fat. go study. she went back and studied and graduated new york university school of dennist ri one of three female surgeons in the country. if you go in youtube and type in thornton sisters, and you can hear us. linda lost 180 pounds, and she volunteered for the united states army. she recently tied as a lieutenant colonel, and now she's an associate professor at temple university and got her masters in health policy. that's linda. my other sister was basically

the kid sister. when the first book was written, she was a science teacher, and after that, we said, you know, they want more from you, rita. you can't just have a bachelors. she said leave me alone. i know it's important, but secretly my sister rita went back and applied and was accepted to the university school of law, and so she has her jd. she didn't like law, and so now today, her at 55 years of age was the first black woman in new jersey institute of technology to get her ped hd in -- ph.d. environmental science. not all of us are doctors, but the surviving daughters are all dr. thornton, and made that one leap in one generation. many you drop out of high school, the next goes to college. the next will complete college, the next will go on to graduate school, but in one generation?

it's almost unheard of that a janitor and a ditch digger and somebody working as a garbage man and a woman who cleans people's houses with six daughters would rise to be successful and independent accomplished women? that can be done because we've realized the power of a dream. thank you. [applause] [applause] now, there's some questions and answers from the audience. i know you must have some questions. there's a microphone for you to speak into on both sides. don't be shy. you mean to tell me not one question? well, come to the microphone.

>> hello. >> hi. >> i'm christine gordon, i'm a 9th grader, and my question was like so you feel really proud that you like completed your father's dream? would he be proud you delivered like all those 5,000, like a lot of children, did he really want children that bad, but were you like -- >> he reallimented want -- really wanted a boy? >> how would he feel that you delivered babies all day? >> i deliver a lot of babies, but as far as my father was concerned, after all he didn't care whether we were boys or girls, but us as daughters to do

the best that we could to rise above and be educated, and that's the only way to get us out of the ghetto into the mainstream, so i'm sure he's happy in help that he has a daughter that is an obstetrician, but i wanted to deliver babies since i was eight years of age. >> thank you. [applause] >> just come to the microphone, folks. i won't bite. just come to the microphone. just come to the microphone. [laughter] >> okay, okay, okay do you think you're a ditch digger to your son? >> do i think i'm a ditch digger to my son? i didn't understand that.

i'm sorry. i can't hear you. with regard to the up -- inspiration of guiding my son to where he is today? yes, i believe so. as a parent you have an obligation to make sure your chirp rise as high -- children rise as high as their little brains can take them, so, yes, i do. [applause] >> hi. >> hi. >> my question is why did you choose that specialty of being a doctor? like why did you choose that type of specialty? >> obstetrics? well, in the first book it tells you. i was eight years of age in an elevator with my aunt in a hospital, and a young lady came in and delivered right there in the elevator. she squatted, and boom, she delivered too fast for her to get to the hospital, and i was

there, and i witnessed the delivery of that baby. i said, wow, this is cool. i can be around with one person becomes too people? this is cool. that's what i wanted to be since i was eight years of age. [applause] >> hello. >> hello. >> i'm an 11th grader. >> 11th? >> yeah. >> good. >> i wanted to know if you had any advice for any of our young women here who are going to college or want to pick a major and see what our, you know, life path is going to be. >> well, i say for my family it was medicine. everybody can't be a doctor. i'm not saying that, but look to what you love to do. when you good up in the morning, what you think about doing, and that's what you should strive for, and don't let anybody say you can't do it. when you go off the college,

especially liberal arts college, there's so many options, but if you focus on what you like to do and stick with it, you'll do well, versus over here and other semester there, and you lose time because time is important. just stick with it, and you'll do just fine. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. [applause] >> hi, hi. >> hi. >> my question was do you believe that your grand kids or nieces and nephews will carry on the legacy of your father and what he wanted you guys to pursue? >> i always hope so because i believe, this is me, my opinion, i think medicine is the most noble of all endeavors from one human being to another. if you can heal somebody, save somebody's life, it's very, very noble. i hope that any grandchildren will go into medicine also or in some area that they will be able to help people. >> thank you. >> you're welcome.

[applause] >> hi. >> hi. >> i'm camela. >> hi there. >> i know you're successful now. what do you think is your best achievement so far? >> the best achievement is having my two kids actually. being the mother of two wonderful children. thank you, thank you. [applause] but also being a double board certified specialist doesn't hurt. [laughter] >> i'm samantha. >> i can't hear you. >> i'm samantha, and i wanted to know other than your mother and father, who else supported you? >> who were my role models other than them? no one. it was just my mom and dad. we were insulated from the community that were nay sayers saying you can't do it, never heard of a black doctor or a female doctor, or never heard of anything, so why you want your daughters to be doctors? i never heard of them. we were isolated from that

community and i understandlated with love. did you want to be a doctor, be a doctor, and that's what we did. we just put the blinders on and put ear plugs in the ears and went forward to do what we wanted to do. [applause] thank you. [applause] >> hi. >> hi. >> i was wondering when you were in college for a long time, did you start to drift off even though you were doing what you love, but did you change a major and then come back? >> some people do that, but i didn't. being a doctor is so many years, so many years, but really, you're going to live those many years anyway. when i went to the university, there was a prescribed course that you had to take and a curriculum to follow. i followed that curriculum. however, some of my colleagues who are physicians now, they took two years, and they went to chinese literature or art and

came back to premed, and they just didn't go to medical school right away, but in my situation, i went straight from undergrad to medical school without any sort of deviations. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. [applause] okay, the last two questions. >> did you ever feel obligated to be a doctor because your father was like telling you to do it? did you ever try to do something else or look into another field? >> well, that's a good question. not me, but my other sister, jenette, you know. my father wanted us to be a physician because you're financially secure and you're safe. i always wanted to be an obstetrician so there was a con fliewns of what my father wanted, ie, being a doctor, and what i personally wanted being an obstetrician, so a doctor who delivers baby was an obstetrician, so i was the first one in the family to become a doctor.

i aspired my younger sisters, motivated my older sisters so that we all could go forward and do the best that we could do. [applause] thank you. one more. >> hi, my question is out of the 5,000 children that you delivered, is there like a specific memory that stands out to you the most? >> that's an excellent question, and we'll end on that. why? because i can't answer that question as of a few weeks august, but i have one now. i have 5,000 babies i delivered, i was asked to attend the wedding of one of the babies that i delivered 25 years ago, and i was there at the end of february, and her mom was in a wheelchair. she came to me and had a complicated pregnancy.

no one else wanted to touch her mom, but if you can get pregnant with the help of god, we'll get through. we did, and i was asked to be a guest at her daughter's wedding. when i saw her, the baby that i delivered walk down the aisle and the mother in a wheelchair right next to her, it was such an overwhelming emotional time for me to say if i were not trained well, that lady would not be there. it was a wonderful time to see that i do touch people, i do make a difference, and as an obstetrician who touches the child before the mother touches it is that you do touch and have a feeling of immortality. thank you very much for designate that question. [applause] >> to find out more, visit the author's website, doctorthornton.com. >> now, women in hezbollah, that is one the most interesting

aspects of the society that hezbollah managed to create. i like to say that the women of hezbollah are really the cornerstones of the movement and are what has turned it into something that has such an enduring and resilient bedrock so each time there's a war, and i mean, 1993, 1996, 2006, there's massive amounts of destruction. people's homes are destroyed every time. people's kids get killed, and for it to happen once, you know, anything can happen once. for people to be willing with good sheer and high energy to volunteer again and again for this requires something that hezbollah managed to do which is buy in at the level of households at home, and it's the women in the households who hezbollah worked really hard to reach and teach and put into the

view, and these women became the bedrock of the ideas and willingness to fight for that, so i write about this a fair amount in the book, and these mothers, martyrs, for example, have a very different flavor say, or psychological profile than mothers of martyrs in gaza or the west bank. people i met in lebanon grieved their dead children. not a single one said they were happy my child died in the service of this war, but they did say i'm proud, and i would send another kid to do it, and they work with their surviving children to instill in them a since of pride at the martyrs in their family, and it's, it's the thing that makes hezbollah sort

of people who are willing to die such a stable part of the movement that they can count on, and, you know, it's really -- in some ways it's breathtaking the sophistication of the social network that hezbollah built up around the idea so when a young fighter, let's say dies and becomes a martyr, the party sends psychologists and social workers around to the family to work with them, make sure that they deal with their depression, make sure the kids are doing okay, and adjusting and succeeding in school, and this is for two reasons. one is because they care about their members, and the second reason is they want people in the society, the islamic resistance to see the family of the martyrs are the ones who thrive the most.

the foundation makes sure the surviving kids go to the best schools, encourages the widow to remarry, someone to high status within the party, often another fighter, and the result is that they build an elite and in the core of the elite are the mothers and the widows of these martyrs who sort of exem my the most powerful manifestation in islamic society, and people say, oh, this is the way to climb to the top of my society is being willing to give my life this way, and if i'm chosen to die, then my family will be more blessed. it's incredibly effective. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org.