Dr. Dominique Woods is a physician executive and health equity leader. She is a dedicated champion of limb preservation and amputation prevention, and her work brings together medicine, public health, and technology. This week I sit down with Dr. Dominique Woods, a surgeon-trained physician who turned toward advocacy and built a life she never saw coming. We talk about leaving the traditional path in medicine and finding purpose in public health. We talk about her work in AI, and how technology can reach patients the system too often leaves behind. And she opens up about something deeply personal: living and leading with a chronic illness. How do you take care of everyone else while learning to take care of yourself? And how do you
redefine success on your own terms?

A USC Trustee Scholar, Dr. Woods earned her medical degree from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA through the Charles R. Drew University/UCLA Medical Education Program. She also holds an MPH in Community Health Education. She trained as a categorical general surgery resident at the University of Arizona and studied health analytics at Northwestern University and healthcare systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Woods is Vice Chairwoman, President, and CEO of the Limitless Impact Foundation, the nonprofit corporate foundation of Limitless Group International Corporation. She is also Director of Clinical Research at Limitless Therapeutics. In these roles she leads capacity-building work in corporate social responsibility and helps develop AI-enabled, data-driven healthcare solutions for medically underserved communities, especially patients with disabilities.

Her limb preservation work spans several groups:
 The American Limb Preservation Society’s Health Equity Advocacy Committee
 The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services Limb Preservation Workgroup
 The Rancho Los Amigos Orthotics and Prosthetics Think Tank

She created the ALPS Ambassadors Social Media Workshop. It trains students and early-career health professionals to use digital health communication to advance equity in vascular health, diabetes, and preventing lower-limb amputation. Dr. Woods is a committed advocate for representation in medicine. She chairs the Charles R. Drew University Alumni Leadership Council. She also serves as President-Elect and Charity Benefit Chair of the Association of Black Women Physicians (ABWP). Founded in 1982, ABWP is the longest continuously operating organization dedicated to Black women in medicine, and it supports them through mentorship, networking, and medical student scholarships. Black women
make up only 2.8 percent of the physician workforce. Dr. Woods also sits on the community advisory board for the American Cancer Society’s VOICES of Black Women study, the largest population cohort study of Black women’s health ever conducted.

In this episode, Dr. Judith and Dr. Woods discuss:
 Why Black women make up only 2.8% of physicians, and what it will take to change that
 The Association of Black Women Physicians’ 40+ year legacy of mentorship and community
 Coping with Chronic Illnesses and Invisible Illnesses
 Racial disparities in diabetes, vascular disease, and lower-limb amputation
 Limb preservation as a health equity issue
 How AI and digital health can reach underserved patients, including people with disabilities
 Using social media to train the next generation of health equity advocates
 Why representation in medicine saves lives
 How to cope with High Functioning Depression as a Physician

Connect with Dr. Dominique Woods:
Dr. Dominque Woods on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dominiquewoods_md/
Dr. Dominque Woods on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominique-woods-md/
Association of Black Women Physicians Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/blackwomenphysicians/
Association of Black Women Physicians Website
https://www.blackwomenphysicians.org/

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Disclaimer: You may want to consider your individual mental health needs with a licensed medical professional. This page is not medical advice.

Pilar Guzmán is the editorial director of Oprah Daily, where she leads the brand’s coverage of health, wellness, relationships and living well at midlife. She is one of the editors behind Oprah Daily’s The Book of Menopause: Real Talk, Real Science, Real Strategies for Your Next Chapter, which has an introduction by Oprah Winfrey and an opening chapter by Pilar on why “women’s health is hormonal health.” Before Oprah Daily, Pilar was editor in chief of Condé Nast Traveler and Martha Stewart Living, and she was the founding editor of Cookie. Her work focuses on
bringing women clear, science-backed information and challenging the silence and stigma around women’s health.

Pilar and Dr. Judith have worked together for years, from Oprah Daily’s support of Dr. Judith’s book High Functioning to this year’s collaboration on creativity and mental health. Most recently, Pilar and the Oprah Daily editors visited Dr. Judith’s lab to learn about her psychedelic and women’s health research. Dr. Judith was one of the contributing experts to The Book Of Menopause. Dr. Judith was also one of the experts featured on The Menopause Special with
Oprah in 2023.

In this episode, Dr. Judith and Pilar discuss:
 Why “I just don’t feel like myself” is one of the most common signs of perimenopause
 How anxiety, depression, rage and brain fog can be symptoms of perimenopause and menopause
 Why perimenopause, not postmenopause, is the highest-risk window for depression
 How the 2002 Women’s Health Initiative study shaped decades of fear around hormone therapy
 Why so many women are dismissed by their doctors, and how to advocate for yourself
 How menopause can strain marriages, friendships and work, and what partners can do to help
 “Menopause apathy,” losing the urge to people-please, and finding a new sense of self
 Why many women say postmenopause is the happiest chapter of their lives
 How to overcome High Functioning Depression as a woman in midlife.
Follow Pilar Guzmán:
Instagram: @pilarguzman @oprahdaily
Oprah Daily: oprahdaily.com

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Dr. Chris Pernell is a public health physician and the Director of the NAACP Center for Health Equity. She works on health justice, community advocacy, and preventing disease across whole populations. She earned her bachelor's degree cum laude from Princeton University, her MD from Duke University School of Medicine, and her MPH from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. She completed her residency in General Preventive Medicine at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Before joining the NAACP, Dr. Pernell was the first Chief Strategic Integration and Health Equity Officer at University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey.

She also founded The Esther Group, a firm that advises on public health and health equity strategy. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and a Fellow and Regent-at-Large of the American College of Preventive Medicine. She also serves on the health equity committee of the New Jersey Reparations Council.

Her honors include the New Jersey Public Health Association's Dr. Ezra Mundy Hunt Award and the American College of Preventive Medicine's Ron Davis Special Recognition Award. The NAACP New Jersey State Conference also named her one of its & 100 Black People Who Changed the World. She is a frequent media voice on public health and health equity.

In this episode, Dr. Judith and Dr. Pernell discuss:
 Racial inequity in medicine and how it shows up in patient care
 Why Black patients &; pain and symptoms are still too often dismissed
 How academic medicine recruits Black physicians, then pushes them out
 Mentorship, promotion, and who gets told they don't belong
 The emotional toll of racism on Black healthcare workers
 What health justice could look like, and the NAACP's role in getting there
 Navigating High-Functioning Depression as a Black professional

Connect with Dr. Chris Pernell:
https://www.drchrispernell.com/about.php

https://www.instagram.com/thegooddoctormd

Follow Dr. Judith:
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Website: https://www.drjudithjoseph.com/

Sign up for my newsletter here: https://www.drjudithjoseph.com/newsletter-sign-up

Disclaimer: You may want to consider your individual mental health needs with a licensed medical professional. This page is not medical advice.