The Ditchdigger's Daughters

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A lovely letter from a reader – and a reminder of why I’ve shared my life story

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

I still hear from readers who were inspired by my first memoir, The Ditchdigger’s Daughters, although it was originally published almost 15 years ago.

The latest to come to me via email really touched me. It’s from Mr. Fred Belknap, whose lovely words make me think that he appreciates the values that my father instilled in his children in almost the same way I do:

    What an example this can be for our children relative to today, in that many think everything should be handed to them and meeting goals and beating the odds is a birth right. It seems your father did a special job to prepare you and your sisters for this world though perhaps his message was questioned at times as a result of his methods. Even though his vision, now a reality through his daughters, speaks to the strength of having a plan and carrying it through.
    Thank you for sharing your experiences and I pray the many messages engraved within them are seen by the upcoming generation.

Thank you Mr. Belknap. Your kinds words have made my day, week and month.

And a big thanks to all those who have read The Ditchdigger’s Daughters and taken its lessons to heart. I hope you’ll all continue the journey with me and read Something to Prove, my next memoir, which picks up where The Ditchdigger’s Daughters left off. It’s scheduled to be published by Kaplan Publishing in Fall 2010.

- Yvonne S. Thornton, MD, MPH

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ANNOUNCING: My new memoir, the sequel to The Ditchdigger’s Daughters, to be published by Kaplan Publishing

Monday, October 26th, 2009

This is the news I’ve wanted to share with you for months but I had to wait until the contracts were signed. Now I can shout it to the world.

My new memoir, SOMETHING TO PROVE: Memoirs of a Ditchdigger’s Daughter, by Yvonne S. Thornton, M.D., with Anita Bartholomew, will be published by Kaplan Publishing in Fall 2010.

The book sold at auction, meaning that more than one publisher wanted to publish it. I decided to accept Kaplan’s offer over the others because the team at Kaplan really seemed to get what I was saying and what I was about. And Kaplan has published a number of other memoirs by physicians and medical professionals, so I feel that it’s a good match.

SOMETHING TO PROVE: Memoirs of A Ditchdigger’s Daughter, builds on the foundation of my earlier book and shows that what was true as I was growing up is true today: despite bias, despite setbacks, with hard work and determination, we can accomplish whatever we set out to do.

The book begins with the challenges I encountered when, in the early 1980s, I entered what was still an all white boy’s club of academic medicine. Although I faced bias for both my gender and color, I had a secret weapon: my father’s wisdom. The essence of what he drummed into me as a child was that, as a female, and an African-American, I’d have to work twice as hard as anyone else to be thought to be half as good (a sentiment that later became a mantra for the women’s movement). And I did.

SOMETHING TO PROVE will also document how I handled the personal struggles that every working mother must confront, of juggling a career and family life.

And because I’m a specialist in high-risk pregnancies, SOMETHING TO PROVE will offer plenty of edge-of-your-seat medical drama.

It won’t focus solely on the challenges though. Yes, I’ve dealt with setbacks and pain, but I have also enjoyed great success in my career. I have a supportive, wonderful husband, and two children who are poised to follow their parents into careers in medicine.

And that’s the ultimately uplifting message of SOMETHING TO PROVE, in life lessons passed down from my father to me, and from me to my own children.

It’s been a great journey and I look forward to sharing it with you in SOMETHING TO PROVE.

- Yvonne S. Thornton, MD, MPH

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A reader “adopts” my father

Friday, September 11th, 2009

I recently heard from a reader of The Ditchdigger’s Daughters, named Sheila. Like so many who have sought me out over the years, Sheila had words of admiration for my father. But for her, my book about how my blue collar laborer, high school dropout father instilled the importance of an education is his daughters provided an especially poignant inspiration:

I grew up in the projects and never had a father. I purchased your book and Donald Thornton became my father. Whenever I wanted to give up or thought I was not smart enough I would remember his stern words and teachings. Your dad is the father every little black girl in America needs. I am soon to finish my Bachelors Degree in Nursing and going for a Ph.D.

It’s letters like this that keep me going through the tough times, knowing I’ve made a difference in the lives of others by sharing my story.

And that’s why I wish I didn’t have to wait to announce some major, and very exciting news. I hope you will bear with me for a little while longer. That announcement should be coming very soon.

- Yvonne Thornton, MD, MPH

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Should schools provide voluntary testing for STDs?

Friday, August 7th, 2009

Yesterday, I was on Dr. Nancy’s noontime show on MSNBC, as one of two medical expert guests, to discuss whether schools should be permitted to offer voluntary testing for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) to their students.

As you’ll see from the video, we three physicians (who are also all mothers) — Dr. Nancy, myself, and a doctor from the Medical Institute for Sexual Health in Austin, Texas — agreed that this is a no-brainer. Of course, we should allow schools to offer voluntary testing for STDs.

Why should we test? Because, in a pilot program at eight high schools in the Washington, D.C. area, 13 percent of the teens who took advantage of voluntary testing were found to be infected, most often with chlamydia and gonorrhea. Chlamydia often causes no symptoms but, if left untreated, can lead to chronic pelvic pain due to pelvic inflammatory disease, an increase in ectopic (abnormal) pregnancy and infertility. Only by testing can we be certain to discover and treat it.

This does not mean we want our teens to be intimate at such a young age. But we must face the fact that, despite our best efforts, some are becoming intimate. And, because of this, some teens face the risk of sexually transmitted diseases that, if left untreated, can cause lifelong damage.

No one would be forced to get a test and no one is suggesting anything but that we make the tests available to kids who wish to know whether they’ve been exposed. If they fear that they are infected, we must give them a way to find out for sure so that they can get treatment.

- Yvonne S. Thornton, MD, MPH

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Another letter from a reader of The Ditchdigger’s Daughters

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

It always moves me to hear from readers that my book inspired them. But I’m amazed that I’m still getting such letters, 14 years after The Ditchdigger’s Daughters was first published.

Here are a few excerpts from what a young nursing/pre-med student named Maria, who said that my book changed her life, wrote me:

“I read your book last summer The Ditchdigger’s Daughters and I have wanted to email you for so long but I have been so busy with school full-time and working part-time. But I really want you to know that I admire you so much. My dream is to become a pediatrician, take care of children, and to encourage them, especially young girls, that they can become whatever they want, to never give up, have faith in God, and believe in themselves. I have three sisters and three brothers and my parents have really sacrificed a lot to make sure we could all go to college. Financially it has been difficult and for a while I even contemplated not going to med school because it was so costly …


“I will be graduating with honors and then enroll at The College of William & Mary to finish my pre-med courses… I love to read and I am truly blessed to have come upon your book.”

Hearing from people like Maria is especially gratifying because I know how difficult it is to keep such a dream in sight when money is tight.

I’ve heard from so many readers over the years. I can’t tell you what it means, knowing that my book helped someone get through difficult moments. What I can say to Maria and others is, I’ve been there. I know it’s tough. Keep going. You’ll make it. And when you do, you’ll inspire others.

- Yvonne S. Thornton, MD, MPH

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A blast from my past

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

Those who read my first book, The Ditchdigger’s Daughters, know that my parents, a blue-collar laborer and a domestic, valued education above all. They knew it was the way to a better life for their daughters.

But how did they find the money to put five girls through college, with four of us going on to get advanced degrees in medicine, dentistry and law?

We spent our weekends touring as The Thornton Sisters, playing for college dances, appearing at the Apollo, and recording records.

I’m writing the above because I just discovered that, 44 years after we recorded it, an old Thornton Sisters record is playing on YouTube.  Who would have thought it?

- Yvonne S. Thornton, MD, MPH

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For my father, Donald Thornton, on Father’s Day

Friday, June 19th, 2009

Dear Daddy,

You know how much I relied on your guidance as I was growing up. But I wonder what you’d think if you knew that, even now, more than 26 years after we lost you to a stroke on a snowy February day, your wisdom still guides me.

I know you regretted dropping out of school as a young man and, although you seemed content to work 16 hours a day, it must have hurt not to have the opportunity to better yourself.

I know you wanted better for us, your children.

We may have grumbled when we were kids because you demanded so much. You insisted we get the highest grades in our classes. An A wasn’t good enough for you. You expected every grade to be an A+. We had to reach so high that nobody could yank us back down.

People laughed when you told them your five girls were going to grow up to be doctors. Impossible, they said.

And yet, as the first African-American woman to be board-certified in maternal-fetal medicine (high-risk obstetrics), I’m living proof that your dreams weren’t impossible after all.

Your dreams and your demands for us to do our best are the reasons why, among your five daughters, two are now physicians, one, an oral surgeon and another grew up to be a lawyer.

But I owe you for more than my career in medicine, Daddy. There isn’t a problem that I come across in life where I don’t ask myself, what would Daddy do? There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of you. There will never be a time when I will stop missing you.

Even though, I know, you’re very much with me. Even now. Happy Father’s Day.

- Yvonne S. Thornton, MD, MPH

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A letter from a reader that touched my heart

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

I usually blog about women’s health but I wanted to depart a bit from that today because of a letter that a young woman named Jacinta sent me.

Jacinta read my memoir, The Ditchdigger’s Daughters, and found in the story the encouragement she needed to become a doctor herself. But let me allow her to tell it in her own words:

“I am 19 years old. I just finished reading your book and it truly inspired me. I want to work with children in the medical field and reading about the obstacles that you overcame to work in the medical field really encouraged me to work harder to accomplish my dream. The thing that really encouraged me was at the end of the book when you and your sisters were sitting around reminiscing about the things that your dad had taught you down through the years … ‘Daddy was the bow, we were the arrows and he aimed high. He didn’t say midwives, he said doctors. He didn’t say dental assistants, he said dentist.’ He always encouraged you all to be leaders and to be the best at whatever you did. That really stuck with me when I read it.


“I can be a leader. I love kids and I always knew that I wanted to work with them, but I never really decided how I wanted to work with them. So I decided that I would either be an obstetrician or a pediatrician.


“… I watched your interview on C-SPAN and I remember you saying that your father told you that the only person that can stop you is you. Well I’m not going to let me stop me so I decided to work towards all my dreams.”

As those who have already read The Ditchdigger’s Daughters know, my father was a blue collar laborer and my mother cleaned houses for a living. But they were determined to see their five daughters do better. They insisted that we work hard, get as much education as we could, and aim for the top. My father had a dream that we would all become doctors. Two of us are physicians now, one is an oral surgeon, another became a lawyer with a Ph.D.,  and one, a court reporter.

I want to take this opportunity to speak to all those like Jacinta, whose families may not have all the advantages. You can make a better life for yourself. If my sisters and I could do it, you can do it. Believe in yourself and be willing to work harder than you ever imagined possible. Then, work harder still. Stay in school, study like your life depends on it (because, in a way, it does), and don’t let anything hold you back, especially not your own negative notions about the limits placed on you from the outside.

And I want to say thank you to Jacinta. Knowing that my book touched you means so much to me.

It’s letters like yours that have inspired me to begin working on a new memoir that picks up where The Ditchdigger’s Daughters left off. I hope that this book, too, will persuade readers to reach higher, study harder, and pursue their dreams.

- Yvonne S. Thornton, MD, MPH

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