You're Not JUST A Number - Putting CARE Back Into Healthcare

By Connie Montgomery and Risa Tolbert

This booklet refers to the stories of two seasoned, black female healthcare professionals who are also consumers of healthcare services that will convince you to think about what it means to care for others in a compassionate way. Also, many real-life examples are shared throughout this captivating, heartfelt memoir of sorts. We hope that reading it will open your minds and lead to a wonderful beginning or a renewed purpose in providing better compassionate healthcare for all those you will serve or are serving.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Connie Montgomery
• Release date: Dec 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985889642

Book preview

Acknowledgements

I would like to dedicate this book to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, my supportive husband of 32 years, Dwayne Graham and my two adult children: Blake and Connor Graham. Your unwavering love and kindness made this project come to fruition and I will always be grateful. Truly, I am blessed to do life with you all. Also, this book is dedicated to every patient and caregiver who taught me the importance of clients/patients/consumers partnering with clinicians and voicing their needs in every aspect of healthcare.

Special thanks to our reviewers: Dr. Lisa Kerr, Kelly Lloyd, Andrea Collier also our editor, Betty Turner, and my co-author Risa Tolbert for their time and her collaboration on this book.

- Connie L. Montgomery, Retired OTR/L; PFA; International Orator

I would also like to dedicate this book to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for giving Connie and I the vision for this book and for the mountaintop and valley experiences on the journey to making it a TREMENDOUS success. I especially want to thank my sister, friend and co-author, Connie, for going with me on this amazing journey of writing this book. I dedicate this book to my parents, James, and Louise Tolbert. I'm grateful for their constant love and support in everything I do, for all the values they taught me, and the sacrifices that they made to make me the woman I am today. Thank you to my brother, Rozmeski, my niece and nephew, Tiana, and Jeremiah, also for their constant love and support in everything I do. To our editor, Mrs. Betty Turner, and co-editor, Connor Graham- thank you so much for your expert editing skills. Thank you to Andrea Collier, Dr. Lisa Kerr, and Kelly Lloyd for reviewing the book, and for their invaluable input. Thank you to all the healthcare professionals who work and have worked so tirelessly to serve others in the healthcare industries. Finally, I want to thank all the patients who have allowed me to serve them over the last twenty-eight years.

-Risa S. Tolbert RT(T), Radiation Therapist

Special Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Ms. Alice Gaskins for her Service to Humanity and use of her Appreciation Pendant (on the back cover) from Lower Florence County Hospital in Lake City, South Carolina. She served as a nursing assistant in healthcare for over twenty years during a time when there were not a lot of Black people in healthcare. Ms. Gaskins and other clinicians like her opened the door and led the way for my co-author and I to begin our journeys in healthcare service. She was my oldest God-sister, and I am grateful she was in my family.

- Connie L. Montgomery, Retired OTR/L; PFA; International Orator

PROLOGUE

After graduating from the Medical University of South Carolina more than twenty years ago, Connie and I began our prospective careers. She became an Occupational Therapist and I, a Radiation Therapist.  As years have passed, she and I have served in the trenches of healthcare taking on the roles of provider, caregiver, educator, orator, etc. She has served and is currently serving on various medical boards, and I have served in the community with various health education groups. Over the years, we talked often about the state of healthcare, the disparities such as lack of access and insurance that are seen in it, especially in Black and Brown communities.  One night during one of our phone visits, her husband, Dwayne, told us in a nice way that he was tired of hearing us complain about healthcare being bad.  It was time for us to do something about it.  After the shock wore off of being put in our places, we agreed with him and accepted the challenge. I had joined a Mastermind class formed by Darlaina Rose and taught by Dr Tajuana Ross.  She guided the group by teaching us how to refine our LinkedIn profiles. She taught us that we needed to be the hunted not the hunter.  She also taught us the processes of writing a book and how to successfully publish it. During one of those