Birthing Pains: A Story of Transformation

It’s 1988. Fresh out of residency training, Dr. Laura Hampton is determined to modernize obstetric care in rural Stephens County, NC. The challenges are many, not simply the resistance to her uppity northern Negro aggressiveness from physicians at the county’s hospital. She’s also fighting to demonstrate that African Americans are unshakeable, intelligent, and sensitive three-dimensional people to a world that sees them as anything but. Always an outsider, Laura also struggles to fashion a comfortable life for her children and Jewish husband Aaron in a small town not far removed from the customs of the Jim Crow south. Her clinical work is hampered by the dire poverty that permeates her patients’ lives and insufficient resources to serve them. Laura’s self-confidence is shaken as she stumbles from one situation to another, an emotional turmoil that threatens to upend her marriage. As she struggles to regain her footing, she is forced to reexamine her attitudes about the people she serves, the ways she interacts with them, and how she can carry those lessons into the future that she plans in academic medicine.

Now an Emerita of Emory University, Denise has fought against racial bias and gender discrimination in medicine, focused primarily on making women and families the decision makers in their own healthcare. Denise has always loved the magic of discovery. As a staunch believer in lifelong learning, she remains on the volunteer faculty of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Emory.