Dr. Vonda Wright

I don't mean to cry in public, but I am still a practicing surgeon.

I have looked into the eyes of more than 100,000 people in my lifetime as a doctor.

And I started as a cancer nurse, right?

But I see the future of people today, every day when I take call, and this is what it is.

And I've got to solve for this.

You and I have got to solve for this.

When your Aunt Mary breaks her hip, and I'm called to the hospital bed to see her,

She is laying there in excruciating pain, balled up at the bottom of the bed with that horrible blue gown on that we put people in.

And she doesn't want to be moved up because it hurts too much, right?

From bones that she never even paid attention to, never knew she had because we ignored it and now they're screaming.

That's number one.

Number two, what's happened to her is she's laying there in a pile of her own urine because she was not treated for the gynecourinary syndrome and menopause.

Her pelvic floor got weak.

So many women do not talk about the fact that they become incontinent in late in life and have urinary tract infection.

So she's painful.

She is incontinent, which if she even realizes it is pretty, she feels ashamed about that.

I need to do a 45-minute surgery on her where because she's broken her hip, I need to put a rod down that, the size of my thumb, actually.

I cannot do that if her heart is not healthy enough to withstand anesthesia.

And many times, her heart is so unhealthy because she's taking care of everybody else in the world except herself that the hospitalists have a hard time clearing her heart.

And do you know what else?