Move early, move often: A conversation with Dr. Lattisha Bilbrew on movement as medicine
When orthopedic surgeon Dr. Lattisha Bilbrew looks at a knee X-ray, she’s not just checking for arthritis or bone alignment. She’s studying shades of muscle and fat — clues to a patient’s strength, resilience and untapped potential.
“Sometimes I’ll have a woman come in and say, ‘I’m overweight,’” Bilbrew says. “And I’ll look at her X-rays and say, ‘Yes, I see the fat — but you’ve got tons of muscle under there. You should try strength training.’”
It’s that mix of empathy and empowerment that defines Bilbrew’s approach to orthopedic care — and why she’s been tapped as the keynote speaker for this year’s Movement is Life Annual Summit, themed “Combating Health Disparities: The Power of Movement and Community.”
In this episode, Bilbrew speaks with Movement Is Life’s Christin Zollicoffer about her passion for medicine, which began when she was a young child growing up in England. She remembers her grandmother secretly spitting out pills prescribed for high blood pressure — a moment that left a deep impression.
“My grandmother passed away shortly after that from complications of high blood pressure,” Bilbrew recalled. “I knew at that moment I wanted to be a doctor” — the kind who listens, communicates well and helps patients understand why their treatment matters.
Now a board-certified orthopedic surgeon specializing in hand and upper extremity surgery, Dr. Lattisha Bilbrew brings that commitment to every patient encounter.
A cornerstone of Bilbrew’s message is “loading” — the idea that bone and muscle grow stronger only when challenged. It’s why she encourages patients of all ages, especially women approaching menopause, to lift weights.
“It’s like putting gold coins in a bank for when we’re older,” she says, noting that the more you build now, the more you protect yourself later.
Dr. Bilbrew will be a keynote speaker at the 2025 Movement Is Life Annual Summit on Friday, Nov. 14, 2025, in Washington, DC. This year’s theme is “Combating Health Disparities: The Power of Movement in Community.” Registration is now open. Visit movementislifecommunity.org for more information.
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This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Dr. Lattisha Bilbrew: Just take a look at your body habitus. This is why I love getting X-rays. When I X-ray someone’s knee, I’m not just looking at the knee bone itself, where I’m looking at the density of the bone, as we talked about before, you can actually see the shade of muscle around the knee, so you can see how much muscle someone has has, and then you can also see a shade of how much fat someone has around it. So sometimes I’ll have a woman that comes in that’s very heavy, said, and says, I’m overweight. And I’ll look at her X-rays, and I’m like, yes, I see the fat, but you got tons of muscle under there. I was like, you should try strength training. And then they’ll go out there and they’ll be on the leg press and realize I can do as much as the guy next to me. Yes, genetically, you have the muscle to do that, versus the person who I see very, very small muscle. They’re very frail. That’s where I’m like, let’s start steady and slow so that we don’t tear things. We’re not hurting ourselves. Because a part of motion and movement is that you need to enjoy it.
Christin Zollicoffer: You’re listening to the Health Disparities podcast from Movement is Life. I’m Christin Zollicoffer, Movement is Life board member and an executive coach and health equity trainer facilitator. Today’s episode is one I’ve been looking forward to, because we are joined by Dr. Lattisha Bilbrew, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon, speaker and advocate who brings both surgical precision and a deep commitment to whole person care and whole person living. Dr. Bilbrew has served in academic and hospital settings, led community outreach initiatives and launched her own practice focused on accessible, culturally competent orthopedic care. She’s a passionate mentor and speaker known for her ability to connect clinical expertise with real life impact. She uses her voice and her platforms to connect with and empower women interested in medicine and to educate patients to do better before she hits the stage at this year’s Movement is Life annual summit. As a keynote speaker, she joins us to discuss the importance of moving early and moving often. Dr. Bilbrew, welcome to the Health Disparities podcast. Thank you for being here.
- Bilbrew: Thank you for having me. Thank you for such a wonderful introduction.
Zollicoffer: So we’re so happy to have you, and we’re so happy to have you as our. Keynote speaker, also for Movement is Life Summit, before we dive into that conversation. Dr. Bilbrew, I want to put a shameless plug for our upcoming Movement is Life annual summit. This year’s theme is “Combating Health Disparities: The Power of Movement and Community.” This conference will take place in Alexandria, Virginia, on Friday, November 14. It’s an incredible event. We do it every year. This year we’ll be bringing together clinicians, advocates, researchers and community leaders to tackle health disparity challenges and to share actionable solutions. We hope you all can join us there to learn more. Please visit our website, Movementislifecommunity.org, for all the details. Ready to jump in, Dr. Bilbrew?
Dr. Bilbrew: Let’s get to it.
Zollicoffer: Let’s do it. So first, we just want to start tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came and be so passionate about movement and the work that you do as an orthopedic surgeon.
Dr. Bilbrew: Sure, so I practice orthopedic surgery, and I specialize in upper extremity, but really, my passion for medicine came from the time I was a little girl. There’s very few people that know what they’ve wanted to do since they were about four or five, and I’ve really been fortunate and blessed that I was one of those. So I was born in England, and my parents were born in England. We’re just black people from England, and I remember when my grandmother was sick in the hospital and a provider came in. It could have been a nurse, a physician, I don’t really know, and they gave her some medicine, and they were like, Here, take this. And my mom, my grandma, took the medicine, put it under her tongue, acted like she was swallowing it. The provider leaves the room, and she opens up this cabinet, spits it out, and there’s like, I’m the only one in the room with my grandma, this time at the tender age of five, and the cabinet is drawers full of like these little white pills and yellow pills, and she never took her medicine, and it was for high blood pressure, right? And you may be thinking, Where does all this come in? But my grandmother passed shortly after that from complications of high blood pressure, and I knew at that moment that I wanted to be a doctor, but the type of doctor that didn’t display the empathy, the need for communication, the need for understanding that is necessary to impart on patients, the importance of Western medicine. So carry that through. Today. I’m an orthopedic surgeon, and of course, you know, I don’t necessarily manage hypertension, but my passion. Really lies in the importance of communicating to patients on their level, on their level of understanding why they need certain things done. They are in the office because they have some type of ailment or pathology or issue, and they need to leave that office with either understanding what they have or understanding the journey that they’re going to be taking with the physician to solve it.
Zollicoffer: What a powerful story. And what I hear is that in building culturally competent care, you saw a level of distrust through the your grandma and her provider, and you look to build that with your patients.
Dr. Bilbrew: Absolutely.
Zollicoffer: Yes, very, very strong is your sister also in medicine as well?
Dr. Bilbrew: So she’s, she’s a doctor, but she’s a PhD. She’s not an MD. I don’t think she can take looking at blood and all of that. She works at Georgetown. She’s in Student Conduct, so she’s, she’s the person you don’t want to see on campus. It usually means you’re about to get suspended.
Zollicoffer: Excellent, but it sounds like your family had a powerful influence on both you and your sister. So, fantastic. When you talk about health equity, or the desire to address health disparities, how does that play into your work specifically?
Dr. Bilbrew: You know, I love that question, because orthopedics is such, especially orthopedic hand, it’s such a sub specialty, right? So we’re typically the ones for joint replacement and arthritis and, you know, carpal tunnel. But health equity plays a purpose in anyone who works in health care, and it has to start with understanding where your patient is coming from, which is health literacy. We have to establish what is my patient’s health literacy on whatever they’re there for, right? So that’s number one. And I think sometimes, as physicians and really dislike the word providers, but providers, we skip that step because we’re so focused on I know what’s wrong with you, and that’s not really the sole purpose of a patient coming in to be treated. They don’t just want to know what’s wrong with them. They need to understand it. Because if they come from a background where what your diagnosis is isn’t what they think, they’re not going to take the treatment plan. So we have to understand health literacy. We have to meet patients where they are, and what that requires is listening. And so the number one thing I remember from Morehouse School of Medicine when I’m talking to a patient is, let them talk until they exhaust themselves. You will gather all the information. And, trust me, that is hard for me, because sometimes I can look at a patient’s hands and I’m like, it’s arthritis, it’s a trigger finger, and I’m itch. I mean, Christin, I’m itching just to be like. But you know what works better is when they can tell me the story, but sometimes they pull out the phone and they’re showing me the pictures. That develops trust. When they’re able to do that, you’re able to actually dismantle any health inequities that exist, because the patient’s able to share what’s wrong with them. They know their body better than I will ever know, and so that’s where I usually start when I’m educating individuals on, well, how do I even address health inequities or health equity? Like I’m just, I’m just here to treat the carpal tunnel. No, you’re here to listen to the patient.
Zollicoffer: And that’s a rare perspective from a surgeon, right? Because you’re so specialized, you have so many years in medicine, but that small activity that feels probably like an eternity to listen, that trust also then yields agency for your patients exactly, and likely improves adherence.
Dr. Bilbrew: Right. And the worst thing that can happen is, which happens to me all the time. You get patients that are there just for social visits. There was, I’ve already solved their problem, like, two visits back now. They’re like, well, how are you doing, Dr. Bilbrew? Why are you here? Ma’am, I just saw you, like, during covid. This happened all the time. I’m like, but your knees okay? And then I’m like, follow up as needed. And they’re like, Well, how about I see you back in six weeks, I’m like, Fine, see me back in six that’s the worst thing that can have. You get a little behind in clinic, because people are talking, but people who are used to you, they know I’m always I’m 45 minutes. Everybody know you’re gonna be waiting 45 minutes, but I’m gonna listen to what you have to say.
Zollicoffer: That’s an amazing experience from a patient, for sure. So I have another question, because we’re going to move, we’re going to move on, because I want to make sure we address a few key issues when we’re talking about moving early and moving often. In your experience, what are some of the biggest barriers that patients face when they want to stay active, and how do you help them overcome them?
Dr. Bilbrew: Embarrassment, it’s, it’s embarrassment. It’s not feeling comfortable to start, and that is a reason that before you even have access to a gym or to a safe space, they are so disgruntled with their body, because the ones that are healthy are already moving. They’re the ones in the Lululemon at the gym. They’re good. I don’t have to tell them to move. It’s the ones that are uncomfortable in their body, embarrassed about how they got to this state where they can’t move their arm above their head, and they don’t know where to start. And so the first part is to explain you don’t have to be embarrassed. You don’t have to feel uncomfortable, because where you’re starting, there’s 1000 of the people that are starting there too, and the important part is to start right? And so again, there I have patients that are from different socio economic backgrounds. Some of them are like, I have access to the gym, but I feel like people are going to be looking at you, baby. No one’s looking at you in the gym. No one’s looking at you. You know, the ones that you know, that you know, maybe they live in a group housing situation, like my elderly patients. And for them, I’m like, just walk the hallway. And the next time you see someone say, Hey, do you want to walk with me? And you just walk the hallway. And each week, try to increase it, so once they’re able to get over the embarrassment, the internalization of my body is breaking down. When my patients say, my body is breaking down, no, it’s not because you’ll be in the grave already. That’s breaking down when you’re in ICU, right? And you’re on organ failure. That’s breaking down, where you are right now is just, it’s a tough spot. Things are sore, things are achy. It doesn’t mean like, it’s going to be like that forever.
Zollicoffer: And so the emotions really do impact, right? Because that’s you’re helping them overcome their emotional state. And you mentioned that, you know, every patient’s fitness journey depends on where they are physically and emotionally, right? So how do you tailor those movement plans to meet people where they are.
Dr. Bilbrew: Again you listen to them. So sometimes I’ll ask, you know, what do you currently do? So that will range from the individual who is the CrossFitter, right and then, but even my CrossFitter, are you? Does your birth year start with an eight or a seven? Because we need to talk about some things. Do you? Does your birth year start with a zero? We’ll talk about some things to the person who says, I’m sedentary, you know, or the one I hear often is, I am in a physical labor job. That is my workout. And I have to say, No, that is your baseline. You are not just because you lift heavy boxes or you do something repetitive, or, you know, my individuals that they’re the male man or male woman, just because you’re moving that that is zero. That’s point zero for you. You have to excel above that in order to see changes in your body, in your muscle, in your heart.
Zollicoffer: Yes, that education feels like a reframe, right? So you’re in the business of reframing to also help folks get going. And what’s the benefit when you talk about moving early and moving often, and how do you even recognize that in disparities in different communities?
Dr. Bilbrew: The benefit is that you don’t have to see me. That’s the benefit, right? So I tell people, listen, I love to have you as my patient, but I prefer to see you because you and it sounds terrible because you’re in the car accident, something that you could not control. I don’t want to see you because you have developed adhesive capsulitis or frozen shoulder, because you haven’t been doing this motion every day, right? I don’t want to see you because you can only do your bra from the front because you haven’t been doing it from the back your whole life to get that increased motion. And you just like, well, this is just easier. The benefit is, less health costs, right? So seeing me seeing a sub specialist is, unfortunately, expensive. It is a copay every time you have to see me. It is the transportation to get to me. It is the time. It is the pain of a cortisone injection. It is the irritation of having to take an anti-inflammatory or a steroid dose pack, or worse yet, having to have my scalpel meet your skin, and then we have to do eight to 10 weeks of therapy. The better part is to set the expectation early and often of moving. So though it is not comfortable to practice going from sitting to standing without pushing up on anything, that’s something I want you to do two to three times a day for my patient who is 65 and does not move, for a patient who is now in their 30s, and they have not moved since high school. We need to start strength training for my patient who is para menopausal, and it’s man, my knees are making these popping sounds and they’re achy. We need to start strength training. We need to build your quads and your hamstrings so that at 70, you don’t rely on a cane to go from sitting to standing, so meeting expectations, listening to people where there are, and then explaining to them. The cost of seeing me is high.
Zollicoffer: It’s high. I hear you and it is, and I could see myself in a few of those examples that you just shared. Right. Yeah, and you said, you know, basic motion, like raising our arms overhead, is something that we lose over time. So that kind of foundation, or even, you know, re fastening our bras at different places, that foundational movement is that movement is so foundational, um, what happens when you stop doing it? Or if you’ve never done it.
Dr. Bilbrew: So when you stop doing it, you lose it for that time. It’s not gone forever, okay, but you can get it back, yeah, you lose it, and what you gain is pain, right? So when we don’t move a joint, when you, if you keep your wrist still for six weeks, you’re going to have pain, right? When you try to move it again, it’s going to be very painful for any body part. So the reason why a lot of individuals have pain with overhead activity is because they haven’t done this in a while. They haven’t been down to touch their toes in a while, right? But it is something that you can gain back. That’s what’s amazing that lots of scientific studies have seen, if you even go on social media, they’ll have examples of people who are in their 70s or 60s, 70s and 80s that were completely just sitting still. They get a therapist or a trainer, and all of a sudden you see them dead lifting and squatting, and you’re like, How is this 70 to 80 year old person able to do this? It’s because you can actually gain it back longer if you do that when you’re 20, within four weeks, trust me, you’re going to be doing it when you’re 70. It may take about 12 months of persistence and dedication and consistency.
Zollicoffer: So pain is the notifier. It’s not the barrier.
Dr. Bilbrew: Exactly. Just because it hurts doesn’t mean that you can’t do it. You just have to seek the guidance of someone who is an expert in that field. That may mean going to your orthopedic surgeon, getting in yourself a personal trainer, or someone who specializes in exercise. And they have that for all age groups, especially for my senior population at a lot of the community centers, you know, they’ll have individuals that can do things like just chair therapy, right where they’re they’re moving just from the chair they meet you where they are, for people who are overweight, and they say, Well, I can’t do boot camps. Great. We’re going to get you into aquatic therapy. We’re going to get you in a pool that eases your joints. You’re still going to lose weight. You’re sweating, and you don’t even know, because you’re in water, until I can press you to that point. So I think from just speaking with a patient, seeing where they are working with whatever financial issues they have, there is a solution for everyone.
Zollicoffer: Oh, that’s that’s encouraging. And, you know, strength training seems to be a very cornerstone of your philosophy. Explain why loading by loading motion or weights or on bone is so critical, especially as we age?
Dr. Bilbrew: Oh, absolutely. So you know, one of the most common things that is going to happen as individuals age, they are going to lose muscle mass and they’re going to lose the density of their bones. What does that mean? When you add loss of muscle mass and loss of density, that equals falls and fractures, when you break your hip or your wrist, your risk of death increases by a huge amount. Bone, which most people don’t know, it actually reacts to load, you can strengthen your bone by loading it right. So by just a smart of it is something called Wolf’s law, which is, bone will only grow if you add a stress to it, right? The reason why our bones get thin is because we are not loading it. So when you look at a 10 year old’s bone that looks on an x-ray, it looks nice and strong and white and healthy. Why? Because a 10 year old runs everywhere, right? They you ever seen a kid? They don’t know how to walk anywhere. They are running here, and they’re loading their bones. They are putting pressure on it. The bone grows in relation to that. If I look at somebody who is 80, and I look at their knees and their X rays, it looks washed out. Why? Because they’re sitting down all day. They have not loaded their bones. Their bones have not got strong. You ever seen a kid take a fumble and you’re like, I know something’s broken, and they get up and they just brush it up. Their bones are strong, versus an 80 year old that is frail, can barely tip over, and the whole hip is now shattered, right? The second thing that goes along with the bone is the muscle. Muscle is one of the most protective organs we can have as we age. Your muscle is like growing muscle. It’s like putting gold coins in a bank from when we’re older. So for people who grow muscle from their 20s, 30s, 40s. Now, our ability to grow muscle slows down a little bit once we are in our 40s and 50s, but it doesn’t stop you continue to grow muscle. Think about that as the padding to protect you from a fall, from getting increased injury, from. Increasing your rate of maybe dying because you’re in bed and you can’t get up, it increases your mobility. You know, you see 90 year olds that are bending down, squatting and moving around. Their quality of life is night and day from the 90 year old that not just needs a cane, but somebody else to help get them up, just to go from sitting to standing. That’s your glute muscle, right? That’s your butt muscle, which are several different muscles that allow us to do that. If you don’t continue to grow that and your leg muscles as you age, you’re going to end up with injuries, falls, bed, bound, decubitus, ulcers, so many different things, because you didn’t continue from what you did when you were 10 to when you were 20, 3040, and that motion, it can change, of course, when you’re 10 years old, you’re just running around and doing monkey bars. Maybe in your 20s, you’re still athletic. You’re in college. In your 30s, that can look like yoga and maybe some CrossFit classes in your 40s that may look like cycling and, you know, doing a little bit of strength training, it changes based on your decade, which leads me to another point it kind of should. So sometimes I’ll have somebody come in in their 50s and 60s and they’re like, I can’t hit that bench press like I used to. You’re not supposed to, okay, we need to maybe decrease the weight and increase the reps. And this is why checking in again with somebody who is an expert in nutrition, in health, in motion, in movement, whether that is an orthopedic surgeon or a trainer or even educating yourself, you can learn these things to adapt as our body adapts. It would be unimaginable to expect what your body did when you were 20, for it to do when you’re 70, right? You have to meet yourself where you are.
Zollicoffer: So let me just tell you, I’m encouraged. First of all, this is new information for me. I’ve and I’ve worked in healthcare, so I appreciate the perspective of a loading and it made me curious, what does loading look like at my age? Right? Because, no, I’m not going to be running everywhere and so and I think if I go on walks, am I loading my muscles? If I do a spin class, am I loading my muscles? And I really got encouraged when you said it my age. You know, maybe yoga is also loading. So I’m curious what other activities can be considered loading your muscles.
Dr. Bilbrew: When I think about loading, it’s really, it’s really weights, you know. So sometimes if I hear someone is only doing running, I’m like, That’s great. That’s cardio. And you do build some muscle from running, but you do have to add weights, and that doesn’t mean that you have to start off doing like, 100 pound deadlifts. For someone who’s like, I’ve never done a weight a day in my life. Great. We’re going to start with one pound.
Zollicoffer: One pound. No shame, right?
Dr. Bilbrew: No shame. Basic biceps, triceps, shoulder press. I mean, you can literally go on Google and say, I need a basic strength training program for myself as a 48 year old woman who’s never moved in the last 20 years, and boom, it will pop up, right? And you start slow and you start steady, but you do need to wait. Alright? Cardio is great for our heart. Cardio is great because it makes us efficient. So cardio, I’m talking about running, cycling, walking, yoga, you know, things of that that’s wonderful. But you, if I don’t see a dumbbell in your hand, I’m concerned, right? Because that muscle is what protects us.
Zollicoffer: You can start with a can, a can of vegetables.
Dr. Bilbrew: Exactly, you can start with a bottle of water, right? If you can fill up a bottle of water. And just, we’re going to start with curling that. What I’m also going to do is just take a look at your body habitus. This is why I love getting X rays. When I x ray someone’s knee, I’m not just looking at the knee bone itself, where I’m looking at the density of the bone, as we talked about before, you can actually see the shade of muscle around the knee. So you can see how much muscle someone has has, and then you can also see a shade of how much fat someone has around it. So sometimes I’ll have a woman that comes in that’s very heavy, said, and says, I’m overweight. And I’ll look at her X rays, and I’m like, Yes, I see that fat, but you got tons of muscle under there. I was like, you should try strength training. And then they’ll go out there and they’ll be on the leg press and realize I can do as much as the guy next to me. Yes, genetically, you have the muscle to do that, versus the person who I see very, very small muscle. They’re very frail. That’s where I’m like, let’s start steady and slow so that we don’t tear things. We’re not hurting ourselves. Because a part of motion and movement is that you need to enjoy it, right? Like, I work out every day, not every day, six days a week, and everyone’s like, how do you wake up at 5am I. Actually enjoy it, because I’ve created a program for myself where I look forward to it, like, today’s back and bicep day, like, let’s go right? So I don’t want someone to do an activity that they dread doing. Like, I have patients that come in, they’ll be like, Could you write me a note to tell my trainer that I can’t go in today? You need to change your trainer. You need to change your program. Ma’am, you should be in. This should be something fun, right? Someone who hates to run, great, go for a walk outside. Grab yourself a weighted vest. That’s like the new thing that everybody wants: a weighted vest. And go for a walk. If you don’t like running, you don’t want to do heavy, you know, leg presses. Go find something you do enjoy. Go. There’s a machine in that gym that you will enjoy doing. Trust me,
Zollicoffer: Love it, yes. So you know what you mentioned, weight loss and GLP ones are hot. Yeah, they’re sexy, right? They’re new. They’re making headlines. You’ve seen real mobility, movements, I would imagine, and patients using them. So how do you incorporate those into your broader strategy?
Dr. Bilbrew: I am definitely in support for GLP ones because I think sometimes physicians will look at a patient who is heavy set and just say, just go out there and exercise, and it’s like their knees hurt, how they can’t even walk right. Or maybe they have food noise where they’re like, I lose weight. I gain weight, I lose weight. GLP ones under the right provider, right? There’s so many different programs now I’m always like, don’t just choose one that’s going to send it to you in the mail. Get it under the guidance of a family physician who holistically can look at you and say, Okay, we’re going to put you on this medication, we’re going to change your diet, we’re going to add some type of exercise regimen. It’s that Trifecta where patients have the greatest success individuals that say, you know, it didn’t work for me, aside from those that had serious complications, like, you know, nausea, vomiting, it’s usually because they didn’t combine it with the nutrition as well as the the exercise. They work together, and I find that for individuals that they can’t even get started. And GLP, one could be a great place to psychologically just see the difference in your body. You know we talked about in the beginning, the embarrassment, the feeling that they didn’t belong, maybe outside walking, because someone’s going to look at them funny, or look at them funny in the gym, them just recognizing in their body, like I lost a little bit of white these pants have a little bit of give to them. Sometimes that’s all somebody needs to be like, maybe I’ll go join that cycling class, you know, because I’m feeling more confident. So it’s more than just what it is doing to us biomechanical, but biologically, it’s also what it’s doing to us psychologically, where we can now get invested in our health. And I think a GLP one gives the opportunity to do that when it is combined with the right team.
Zollicoffer: A little motivation goes a long way. Absolutely and so you encourage your patients to advocate for themselves. What advice would you give someone who wants to bring up mobility concerns with their provider but just doesn’t know how?
Dr. Bilbrew: So the first thing is, you have to feel comfortable with your doctor. So I tell my patient, if you’re not comfortable with your doctor, find another doctor, right? This is a marketplace. There are tons of Orthopedic Surgeons, Family Medicine, internal medicine, if you feel uncomfortable because your doctor is always short with you, you don’t have enough time. You feel like they blow you off. Ma’am, sir, you are paying them. This is a service. Get somebody else right. Number one, the second thing I want them to do before they step foot into that room when you are in your home, write down your concerns on a piece of paper, on a notepad, on your phone. You have to write it down because this happens to me, when I go see a physician from a different specialty, I’ll go in there and I forgot why I’m here. They’re like, what brings you in today? I think back and write it down. Y’all like a couple days before, go over it with yourself so you make sure you’re not missing anything. And if you’ve paid attention to number one, where you feel comfortable, you don’t feel like you have to rush through those things, you know that that doctor that you have chosen, because there is a choice. This is a marketplace. You can choose who you want. Are you going to answer those questions, then the third thing you have to do is feel comfortable that if you don’t understand, you say, could you explain that? One more time? For me, I do not. Sometimes, as physicians, we lack the ability to explain things in layman’s terms, because we speak up here all of the time. It’s a part of our training, and it’s a good thing, because that’s how physicians talk to each other, so that we can help our patients. What we often forget is that y’all did not go to medical school. Okay? So it is absolutely okay to say I didn’t quite love when my patients say I didn’t understand that, because I’m like, shoot, let me do a better job. And often I’ll say, could you explain. Explain back to me what I told you. Not every doctor is going to say that. So point number four, right after you get comfortable with saying, Could you explain that again? Repeat back to the doctor what the doctor told you, what your diagnosis and your treatment is. I love when patients say that. So what you’re telling me, Doctor is that I have a carpal tunnel and you’re going to give me today, because you’re writing this down, you’re going to give me today a brace and an injection, and then I’m going to see you back in four weeks. Repeat back to them what the plan and the treatment is, because now it’s locked in for you. You’ve written it down. And maybe the doctor is like, Oh, yeah. And one more thing, I’m going to do this right? And so if you, if you come prepared in that way to any doctor’s, visit Dentist Visit anyone, you’ll walk away with having a much better understanding of what’s happening with your body.
Zollicoffer: Excellent, excellent. And you know, I know we’re getting close to time I’m going to push and just add one more question in there. This is the final question. But how do we see orthopedic care evolving to better address movement and mobility for the needs of diverse communities, especially those who are impacted by health disparities?
Dr. Bilbrew: Well, I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think we are doing great in that field. But as a field, we are lagging behind because we are surgeons, and we are focused on what to do? Does that need a scalpel? And if it doesn’t need a scalpel, please go somewhere else. I do think, however, at least from a national standpoint, with the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, that there is an emphasis now on musculoskeletal holistic care, and that starts from things such as identifying patients that are at risk of falling when you see them in a clinic, identifying patients that are osteoporotic so we can get them back to their physician. And it is becoming a part of daily conversation for physicians, but it’s slow and it’s steady and requires more education. I’m part of the surgeons and the physicians first, so that we can impart it on our patients. So I’ll say the ownership is on us as a specialty, to understand we are more than just the individuals to put in a hip replacement. We’re the individuals to help you understand how to avoid getting that hip replacement. And that starts from somebody who can come into my office? Maybe you’re there for carpal tunnel, but I’m looking at your body habitus. I’m looking at the difficulty that you’re having with sitting and standing and saying, Have you thought about physical therapy for deconditioning? Right? Great place to start.
Zollicoffer: Excellent. Thank you so much. I’d really like to thank our guest, Dr. Lattisha Bilbrew, for joining us today. Thank you for sharing your insights, your personal story, your vision for a more equitable future in medicine. And I look forward to learning more at this year’s annual summit. So thank you so much.
Dr. Bilbrew: Thank you for having me.
Zollicoffer: That brings us to the end of another episode of the health disparities podcast from Movement is Life. I’m Christin Zollicoffer, until next time, be safe and be well.