11/18/2025
Happy Monday Perfect Patients and Future Perfects. 🧡🧡🧡
This is Lakesha, Director of Marketing and Patient Experience, and lately I have been sharing different medical things online about healthcare, compassion, and the patient experience. I am sure some of you have seen the viral video of the woman in Texas in the hospital in active labor. She was doubled over, screaming, clearly in pain, clearly needing immediate help, yet the intake process took thirty minutes. Twelve minutes later she delivered her baby.
The link to the video is in the comments.
Watching that video shook me. It made me think back to 24 years ago when a young physician named Dr. Nzinga Teule Hekima, who we lovingly know as Dr. T, delivered my daughter Avery at Riverside Hospital. It feels like yesterday, and now my baby is about to graduate from Virginia Commonwealth University next month, the very same university Dr. T attended. Life really does come full circle in the most emotional ways.
What stood out to me most as I watched that Texas video was not just the urgency of the moment but the emotional reality of being a mother on the brink of delivery. There is fear. There is pain that words cannot explain. There is the feeling of being between heaven and earth. There is the awareness of your own mortality and the miracle that is about to happen. As a mother in that moment, you want someone who sees you. Someone who hears you. Someone who cares about you and your baby.
That is exactly what I received 24 years ago. Dr. T put her hand on my face and told me it is going to be OK. As a twenty four year old young mother, scared, in pain, and about to bring life into this world for the first time, that level of compassion and tenderness meant everything. It is something I have never forgotten.
This is who Dr. T has always been. A physician who leads with compassion. A physician who sees her patients as human beings. A physician who understands the weight and responsibility of holding someone’s health in her hands. A physician whose presence brings calm, safety, and dignity during life’s most vulnerable moments.
The woman in the video was not treated this way. She was met with questions. Screens. Forms. A system that was not built with her heart in mind. She was suffering in real time. And what she needed was a voice. An advocate. Someone who could have stepped in, seen her pain immediately, and said, this woman is in active labor, get her help NOW.
This is where DPC matters. This is why DPC exists. A DPC doctor will get on the phone. A DPC doctor will advocate for you. A DPC doctor will call the hospital and make sure you are not dismissed, ignored, or forced into a system that feels cold and mechanical. A DPC doctor will guide you, support you, and stand up for you whether you are in the office or in the hospital.
DPC is not just a different model. It is different heart. Different compassion. Different intention. It is care without the rush. Care without the pressure of seven minute visits. Care from a doctor who has chosen this path because they want to show up for their patients fully.
Women deserve that kind of compassion. Mothers deserve it. Families deserve it. Every person walking into a healthcare setting deserves to be seen and treated as if their life, their fear, and their pain matter.
Real care. Real love. Real compassion. Real advocacy.
And as this video continues to circulate, let it be a reminder to all women and families that you deserve a doctor who will stand in the gap for you.
Spread love and choose care that loves you back.🥭🩺DPC
Here are a few photos from that unforgettable day 24 years ago. Each one tells the story of compassion, care, and the kind of bedside manner that every mother deserves.
🥭1. Dr. T putting on her gloves, getting ready with the calm focus she is known for.
🥭2. Me under distress, but still comforted knowing I had the best doctor medicine could offer.
🥭3. Dr. T delivering Avery, fully present, fully committed, and fully compassionate.
🥭4. Nurse T hugging me and giving the love and support that only she can give.
🥭5. Me falling in love with my new baby after a beautiful delivery.
🥭6. Two brand new parents, 24 and 25 years old, changing our baby’s very first number two diaper together.
🥭7. Dr. T giving us our very first new parent talk while my husband proudly held up the craziest diaper ever, and Dr. T smiling because she has always loved caring for families.
🥭8. Us leaving the hospital happy, whole, and grateful.
These photos remind me of what real care looks like. Real compassion. Real advocacy. Real love in medicine.
Mango Medical DPC 🥭🩺
23C S. Mallory Street Hampton VA 23663
757.210.5959
www.MangoMedicalDPC.com
Healthcare with Hospitality and Heart. 🧡
