D.O. or Do Not: The Osteopathic Physician's Journey for Premed & Medical Students

Episode 43: Tyree Winters D.O. Pediatrician & Associate Program Director

April 20, 2021 Season 1 Episode 43
D.O. or Do Not: The Osteopathic Physician's Journey for Premed & Medical Students
Episode 43: Tyree Winters D.O. Pediatrician & Associate Program Director
Show Notes Transcript

For our third Osteopathic Medicine Month episode, we had the honor to host pediatrician Dr. Tyree Winters, DO, FACOP, FAAP. Dr. Winters is both the Pediatric Residency Associate Program Director and the third-year medical student pediatric clerkship director at Goryeb Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Winters is committed to community pediatrics and child advocacy and maintains a special interest in helping youth combat obesity. To that end, he created a dance exercise program called “Hip Hop with a Doc” for kids and adopted the moniker "Dr. Tye."

Tune in to learn more about Dr. Winter’s path to pediatrics, his passion for osteopathic medicine, and advice to students intent on pursuing a career as an osteopathic pediatrician.

Edited by Nicholas Buskill

My name is Dr. Ian Storch. I'm a board-certified gastroenterologist and osteopathic physician,

and you are listening to DO or DO NOT. If you are interested in joining our team or

have suggestions or comments, please contact us at doordonotpodcast.com. Share our link with

your friends and like us on Apple Podcasts, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We hope you

enjoy this episode. Today we interview Dr. Tyree Winters, DO, who is currently serving as the

Pediatric Residency Associate Program Director and Third Year Pediatric Clerkship Director at

the Gorrieb Children's Hospital. He also is part of clinical faculty at Rowan University.

As if that was not enough, he also serves as Medical Director at a clinic, which offers care

for medically underserved children. His interests and passions include working within his community

and advocating for children's health, so much so that he has gained himself the title of the Hip

Hop Doc. We hope you enjoy learning about Dr. Winters' path to pediatrics and why we chose

to spotlight him during this special month. Hello, everyone. This is Amir Kibani,

third year medical student from the Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine. I hope everyone

out there is staying safe, and on behalf of the DO or DO NOT team, thank you for tuning in today.

I'd like to introduce our special guest today, Dr. Tyree Winters, DO,

aka the Hip Hop Doc. How are you doing today? I'm well. Thanks for asking.

So, thank you so much for being on our podcast and taking a Saturday

to answer a few questions for our pre-medical students.

Well, I appreciate, again, the opportunity to be able to come and talk, so I definitely appreciate

this. So, our first question for you, we usually start with kind of letting the pre-medical students

and medical students that listen to our podcast kind of see into your day, what your normal day

looks like. Walk us through your day from the morning when you wake up, eat a bowl of cereal,

and kind of what your roles and responsibilities are throughout the day.

Yeah. So, I actually have three, well, technically four roles that I go through for the day.

So, initially, I wake up around 7 a.m., I would say, hopefully, and I get ready to go in.

And I have four roles. The four roles that I have is the Associate Program Director for

the Pediatric Residency Program at Goriup Children's Hospital in Morristown, New Jersey.

I also am the third-year medical student clerkship director for the pediatrics

rotation for Thomas Jefferson Rowan University, as well as for St. George's University here at

Goriup. And then I am also the medical director for the pediatric health start clinic, which is

the resident continuity clinic. So, out of those three roles, in addition to having private patients

that I see as well, my day is very dynamic. I will usually have half of the day that I will spend

with seeing patients directly in either my private practice or the pediatric health start clinic.

And then I will also have a half a day where I will either be teaching learners, whether

that's medical students or residents, or I will be doing administrative work, whether that's

during meetings for operations of the clinic, or either trying to come up with curriculum or

trying to come up with any type of resident or student issues that may occur.

Awesome. So, what time does your day typically end?

So, I usually can leave out the office at about 5, 30, 6 p.m. For the most part,

Monday through Thursdays, Fridays, I try to leave out a little bit earlier,

but most likely I'll still get out of there at about roughly 5 o'clock.

That's awesome. So, I did introduce you with your nickname, the Hip-Hop Doc. I really would love for

you to tell us about your story about how you received that nickname.

Yeah. So, part of my background in training, so I did my residency at Nationwide Children's

Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. And after I completed my general pediatric residency,

I wound up coming back to Nationwide Children's after a year and a half of private practice.

And I did additional training in pediatric weight management. During that time period,

I had the opportunity to be able to lead a primary care obesity network, which consisted of about

11 practices in the Nationwide Children's close-to-home outpatient care centers.

And it was focused in on pediatric obesity management. And I would do about roughly three

sessions, which is half a day, of seeing just pediatric patients who suffered from obesity.

And as I was going through and talking with them, a lot of the patients that I encountered were

not only from medically underserved or from high-at-risk populations, but they were also

patients who looked like me. They came from underrepresented minority communities.

And one of the barriers that was present was the lack of resources that were available to be able

to do physical activity, whether that was not being able to afford to participate in some of

the community centers like the YMCA or the Boys and Girls Club, but even just having access to

be able to go outside and just be active. So, being in Ohio, I'm originally from Detroit,

Michigan. I can tell you, you have four good months of being able to be active outside.

Outside of that is either too cold or it gets dark too quickly. And so, a lot of these patients,

they would live in homes that would actually be maybe shared wall space or would be tighter

dwelling units. So, apartments that may not be that big or they may have people underneath them

or they may be in trolley park homes. And so, they weren't able to do physical activity

or be able to move around quite a bit. One of the things that I know for sure is my

experience in dance. I have been always able to use dance as a way of being able to not only

do an activity that I enjoy and love, but also I saw weight loss during that process as well.

So, during my time and my fraternity in college, when I was on the step team, I was able to do

step practice and I would find myself losing weight at that time. Or when I was also at my

current role, I'm sorry, at my role in Nationwide Children's, I actually did some hip hop dance

classes around the city and it was a way for me to be able to stay in shape. So, I thought to myself,

why not bring that to the patients that I was seeing at Nationwide Children's?

So, that's exactly what I did. I actually asked my boss, who was the division chair

of primary care pediatrics, if I could use the waiting room area to be able to have

free dance classes for patients. And it was kind of a twofold method. One was that it was allowing

my patients to be able to have the opportunity to be able to have free access to a resource,

in terms of what dance, but it was also a way to be able to ensure that if patients were able to

receive this resource, they would have to come to their appointments and so they couldn't miss

their appointments, which a lot of times you would have a high no-show rate when you do

pediatric weight management. So, I was able to do both things and I started it off.

And the outpatient care clinic in the waiting room, I had about 10 families that show up. So,

it was roughly about 30 people total. And from that point, it continued to grow.

Every other week, I would have a dance class. And then I realized like, man, I'm running out

of space. So, then I partnered with the YMCA. The local YMCA said, hey, I'll tell you what,

if you actually bring this to the YMCA, you can have the space for free. Your patients can actually

come and then be able to enjoy the rest of the day at the YMCA after the class was over,

as long as you allow for our members to be able to come in and participate for free. So, it was a

win-win situation. How the moniker Dr. Tai Hip-Hop that came about was I actually,

I became a spokesperson with the AOA through the deals that care campaign back in 2015.

And during that time period, I was able to kind of meet with the AOA's branding team,

with the public relations team. And we wind up talking and they just asked me questions about,

you know, what were my interests, what things that I did. And so, I was telling them about,

you know, just the hip-hop class that I offered. It was not meant to be anything that was supposed

to be publicized or put out there in mass public acknowledgement. And they heard that and it was

like, this is an awesome thing that you're doing. Can you bring this to OMET? And so, I remember in

2017, OMET was in Philadelphia. I was able to, in the middle of the exhibit hall, be able to

perform as Dr. Tai Hip-Hop doc and show what I did with my patients. And so,

I was so proud of myself because I said, you know, if I want to do this, I want to be truly

authentic to myself and truly authentic to my culture. And I got a chance to play French

Montana pop that in the middle of OMET. So many people just stopped. And by the time I had finished

with the first song and I did two songs, everyone in the exhibit hall, and I turned it up to the

loudest I possibly could, everyone in the exhibit hall was dancing along with me. And it got put on

YouTube. And when it got put on YouTube, it got over 30,000 likes. And so, what grew was Dr. Tai

Hip-Hop doc. That is just awesome. That really is. You really are the epitome of why people

like me want to be physicians. Like, that's just amazing. Oh my God. That was so amazing. Thank

you for saying that. I'm truly humbled. No, really. Like, just you being a DO and me going

into DO school, like it's because of you and the many doctors I've met. That's amazing. And I hope

pre-med students listen to this and see that as well. You did bring up a great point that,

you know, we don't, I've never really taken that into account that like in Detroit and cities like

what you were mentioning that, you know, you have to take into account months that people

can't go outside. That's really interesting. Most definitely. I mean, even now in New Jersey,

where I'm at, I'm right outside the city of New York and I can tell you that it is freezing right

now. I also have become an avid runner and, you know, with the pandemic, when you think about

COVID, it's limiting so many different things we can do. I haven't been back to the gym since March

and even with thinking about like, okay, after I've taken the vaccine, then maybe I can go back to

the gym. Well, you need to still wear a mask and wearing a mask where you're doing physical

activity is quite hard, right? So it's just, it's hard and you have to be able to figure out ways.

And that's the beauty about being not only a physician, but also being a DO is this is not

new to us in terms of being able to find solutions to problems that exist. This is the epitome of

what A.T. Steele thought about when you were to think about OMM even, right? So OMM was never

meant to be something that was you have to do it in this specific way. That's the reason why

as you continue to keep practicing, we find that we can change the way that we do certain therapies

based off of how we need to modify it. And this is the crux of who we are as a profession.

We're adaptable. That's what it is.

Very much so.

So going along with, you know, the story that you told about dancing and everything. First off,

you're lucky that this is on video. I would have made you bust out something.

You can look on, you can, you can, you can look on social media.

The one thing that really inspired me from reading the articles and listening to some

of your interviews is you talking about 16 year old Dr. Tyree Winters. Could you talk a little

bit about that? Yeah. So at 16 years old, I unfortunately was diagnosed with type two diabetes.

I was one of the children who were in adolescence that developed type two. So we talk a lot about

having, seeing children who are developing chronic illnesses that typically you would see

in an older adult or a middle-aged adult. And so that changed my life forever more.

I was fortunate enough to be able to have a family, parents who understood the disease process,

who was able to provide me with not only with guidance on how to maintain a healthier lifestyle,

but also being able to just continue to encourage me to want to live this lifestyle.

But it was quite scary. I was just graduated from high school. I graduated a year early

from high school and started at college at University of Michigan-Dearborn. And at that time,

when I was diagnosed, I was afraid. I was afraid I was going to die. Even though my father had

diabetes, even though I had known family members who had diabetes, I still just felt like I was

going to die. And it's really a hard thing when you are 16. One of the things that a lot of people,

when you talk about just obesity and talk about some of the chronic illnesses that can be associated

with obesity, we do a lot of victim blaming. We do a lot of blaming on individuals for disease

processes that we know can also have not only a lifestyle component, but also can have a hereditary

component. It can also have different biological pathways and markers that can lead to this.

And so it was interesting. If you have a patient that is a type one diabetic,

a lot of people will say like, oh, I'm so sorry. This is such a hard situation for you and I really

feel bad for you. If you have a child that have type two diabetes, a lot of times it's like,

well, you shouldn't have been lazy. You should have been working out more.

You shouldn't have been eating this. You shouldn't have been eating that. We do that to adults as

well. And that was one of the things that I noticed along my journey. And so I really wanted to

stress to myself as well as stress to others how I can make a change. I can definitely make changes

to my lifestyle, but that also it's okay to understand this is not all on you. This is not

all of your fault. Situations happen and just like the same way where you have situations where

someone may have like type one diabetes or may have a cancer diagnosis, you fight through this

and you can be a fighter. There's things that you can do to be able to help yourself.

And there's things that we can do to be able to help you as well. And just partnering with

your healthcare providers. So that was very important to me. And as I was going along through

my medical education and going along through my training, it was something that I really focused

on and something that really became a personal mission to me. But the thing that I noticed is

that it's hard, right? When we're going through medical training, you know this. You are clearly

studying at Alabama College of Ospatic Medicine. You know how you got tests that come up and

sometimes we tend to lean towards not being able to do as much physical activity as we would like,

or it's quite easy to grab something quick along the way that may not be the most healthiest item

to eat. And so I suffered from that. I suffered from that, especially towards the end of my

residency. So towards the end of my residency, I was at the largest that I ever was. And so I wind

up going to see my doctor at the time and I wind up seeing that my hemoglobin A1C was creeping up

and I was noticing even a little bit of protein in my urine, which scared me totally because I

understand that kidney disease is associated with diabetes as well as being African-American.

It's also associated with having worse outcomes in certain populations. And so that's when I

decided like, okay, I have to make a change because I have to live. I didn't go through all this

training to then finish. And now I can't even enjoy or help anyone because I can't even take

care of myself. And so that's when I had made a lot of lifestyle changes and I was able to

actually lose about 70 pounds from that and still been fighting ever since to keep at a healthier

weight. You make it look so easy, but you know what? I can't even imagine the constant fights

and battles that you have to go through. And I'm glad that 16-year-old you had your family

and that support because not many people have that. I agree. I so agree. You mentioned your

education, your undergraduate education, as well as your medical school education. Could you discuss

a little bit about where you went as well as how you really became interested in medicine? Did your

childhood have a part of it? Did you have anyone in your family that was a physician, a DO physician

for that matter? And just ultimately, how did you decide that you want to be a doctor?

Yeah. So ever since I was five years old, I always wanted to be a physician. I was fortunate enough

growing up in Detroit. When I used to say I grew up in Detroit, a lot of times people

have had this happen before, believe it or not, where I've had a attending physician when I was

in training that when we were just kind of talking and passing between patients. And she said,

oh, where did you grow up? And I said, I grew up in Detroit. And she said, oh my God, I'm so sorry.

It must have been so hard for you. And I said, actually, it wasn't that hard at all for me

because I enjoyed it. I mean, the thing that most people don't realize about the city of Detroit is

is that it's so much more than what the news and what mainstream media may portray. It's way much

more than just eight mile as people like to think about when they think about M&M. And like I tell

people all the time, eight mile literally is the road that divides the city of Detroit from the

northern suburbs of Detroit. And it has way more of a connotation, which we can have dissertations

about that. But anyway, but because of that, growing up in the city of Detroit, the beautiful

thing is that I got a chance to experience so many different stratifications of the African-American

diaspora. So I grew up in a family where my parents went to college. I've had great uncles,

great aunts. I've even had a great grandmother who was one of the first black midwives that was in

the state of Mississippi. So this is my family history. And it's not a weird family history for

me either. For most people when they hear African-American version say that they are

a second or third generation college graduate, they may say like, wow, that's weird. But most

of the people I grew up around or I went to school with were, they were second generation or third

generations. And the thing about it is that before, well right around like 2000, Detroit had the most

black CEOs that was anywhere in the country. So we have so many great things about the city of

Detroit. It's just not the gun violence and gang activity and the ruin porn that everyone wants to

show. But with that being said, I had a phenomenal black female pediatrician who was an MD. She went

to Howard University. And actually funny thing is that she graduated 50 years almost to the date,

minus five days, we would have graduated 50 years to the date from each other, but phenomenal,

phenomenal black female pediatrician. And she was my role model and I wanted to be just like her.

I loved everything about her. She was just the sweetest person ever. And she always, always was

just so revered, highly revered in my family. And so I just wanted that. I wanted to always wanted

to help people. I always wanted to take care of children. I was one of those kids that when I saw

a baby or when I was even older, I would take my nieces with me someplace. I would take my little

brother with me someplace because I just always loved just hanging out with kids. And so that was

kind of where I started that drive of wanting to go in. And in my example, fast forward a little

bit more, I had the opportunity and experience to be able to go to CasTech High School, which is a

magnet high school. And at that high school, I had the privilege of being able to do college

preparatory courses where I also had a chance to be able to do an internship in a pharmacy and

become a pharmacy tech and certify as a pharmacy tech. And so that kind of made me think, well,

maybe the pharmacy be an option. Right around the time that I was diagnosed with diabetes,

I wind up switching providers because I was older at this point in time and I didn't feel like I

needed to have a pediatrician anymore. And so my new provider was a DO, Dr. Robert Orr and another

black male physician. And I remember just asking my mom and I was looking it up because my mom gave

me the book of providers that was under our plan. And she was just like, okay, well, it's time to

pick a new physician then. And as I'm going through the book, I remember asking her, I was like, mom,

what does DO mean? And so she was like, oh, it's just another word for doctor. And so I was like,

okay. She really didn't have the most solid understanding either. She'll admit to that.

At least she knew it was a doctor though. Exactly. But the great thing about growing

up in Michigan is there are so many DOs that it's just like you go on any corner and it's like,

empty DO, empty DO. It just seems synonymous. And so I got a chance, Dr. Orr became my doctor.

He was the one who actually diagnosed me with diabetes and guided me through. And then I

started undergrad. I wound up going to, like I said, University of Michigan-Dearborn. And during

that time I had applied. I got accepted to University of Michigan's pharmacy school.

I was starting pharmacy school and my cousin who was starting at Michigan State MD school

was starting the same time I was starting pharmacy school. And we had a conversation.

I remember saying to myself, and I told her, I was like, I'm really jealous of you. And she was

like, why? And I was like, because you're starting medical school and I'm not. And so she's like,

well, why can't you go to medical school? I was like, well, I don't know why I can't.

So after that, I remember going to see Dr. Orr and I said, hey, Dr. Orr, he knew that I had got

accepted to pharmacy school. He was very happy about it. And so I remember telling him like,

you know, I don't think I want to do pharmacy anymore. I think I want to go to medical school.

I want to go to medical school. And so the first thing out of his mouth was, well, I could have

told you that. I could have told you you were supposed to be a physician, but you know, I was

going to let you do your thing. I wasn't going to. And so then I was like, well, you know, do you

have any advice, any tips of what I should do and where did you go to medical school? And so he

told me he went to Des Moines College of Ospatic Medicine. And he said, but I would strongly

encourage you to apply to Ohio University. And when he said Ohio University, I was like,

you mean Ohio State? And he was like, no, Ohio University. And I was like, wow, I never heard

of Ohio University, believe it or not, even though I'm in the next state over. And so he said, you

know, I tell you, they have a great dean who I know. And at the time that great dean was Dr.

Barbara Ross Lee. Oh, right. We just interviewed her. Exactly. I know you did. That's why I had

to throw that in there. But he was really good friends with her. You know, she's obviously a

Detroit native and a cast tech alum as well. And so he worked with her. She lived actually right

down the street from me when she was still in Michigan practicing. But I didn't know who she

was at the time. And he had said, you know, they're a great dean. They have a great program. They

really strive for diversity. And I really think it would be a great school for you to apply to.

That is the only reason why I initially applied to Ohio University.

Then I got a chance to, because I was dead set. I was like, well, I'll go to Michigan State like

my cousin. And I applied, did everything. And I remember when I was going through the application

process, I wind up calling Ohio State. I mean, not Ohio State, I'm sorry, Ohio University.

And I just remember just like sending an email like that night. And this is before, you know,

everybody had your personal computers and you were checking your email. I was checking my

email in the computer lab. This was, mind you, like 2000, 2001, so early 2000. And sent an email

just like, hey, how are you? I'm thinking about applying to your medical school. Well, the next

morning when I got back to campus, I wound up having three emails back from Ohio University.

And at that point in time, it was from the director of admissions, the director of their

center of excellence in multicultural medicine, as well as the coordinator for that center.

At that moment, Ohio University became my number one choice because I was like, wow,

I've never got a response back like that before.

They really wanted you.

Oh my gosh. And so lo and behold, I studied for my MCAT literally 28 days before I took my MCAT.

Because I remember, I was leaving pharmacy school in the middle of everything and just

heard up until my MCAT, didn't do the best.

28 days? I could believe that. Did you pass though?

Well, I mean, I did well enough to be able to be offered an interview at Ohio University.

Oh, you passed. Okay.

Yeah. And so I got offered the interview, I actually got offered to do the summer program,

which was the summer scholars program. And that was the start of my career at Ohio University.

And I just remember when I interviewed with them and Dr. John Schreiner, who was

at the time the director of admission, now he's one of the deans. I remember him personally telling

me that, you know, I always look when I'm thinking about candidates for medical school, if I wanted

this person to take care of me or my family. And he said, when I look at you, I can tell I want you

to take care of my children. And that is the highest compliment I think that anyone can give you.

And I started, I did the post-bac program the next year. And I mean, well, that literally five

weeks later, I did start at the post-bac program. And I started the med school at that, I started

med school the year afterwards. And I loved every minute of it.

That's amazing. That is the biggest compliment during your interview just to receive that

compliment. Wow. So you went from doing the post-bac and is that post-bac just a kind of like a

stepping stone straight into medical school? You could start medical school right when you finished

and if you pass or does that kind of guarantee you another interview? How does that work?

So yeah, so at the time, this was back in 2002, the summer scholars program was a summer program

that was for underrepresented minority candidates, as well as some legacy and so legacy meaning that

you would have a family member that was osteopathic physician, as well as if you were from Appalachia,

because Ohio University is right in the middle of the beginning parts of the Appalachian mountains.

And so it was limited to 25 people. You would do six weeks worth of your,

of a sample of like your first year courses. It's very intense. I mean, you're in school from,

in class from literally from 8 AM to like 6 PM some days, go home and study, you know,

go to the dorms and study, go right back the next day. You would have so many different exams. I

mean, it was presentations. It was six weeks of pure, just unadulterated, just work. And I loved

every minute of it though. It was really informative. It really allowed you to have an opportunity just

to show if you took barriers away of not having to go to work or not having to worry about, you know,

how am I going to afford to pay for housing or how I'm going to be able to pay for food because

they covered your housing, your food, as well as the tuition. And so afterwards, after I finished

that, then you automatically will receive an interview. I did the interview and after I had

completed the interview, you are given certain options. So you would have to – if you're

thinking about doing – if post-bac was an option for you, it would have to be only offered – it

would only be offered to someone who had applied, who met the qualifications to be able to get an

interview. And then if they saw maybe, well, you know, we really think that you are – have

a great potential as a candidate into the medical school, but you may need some additional work

either in taking a couple of more upper-level science courses or just a little bit more

preparation before you start off in medical school, then you could do the program. The

beauty of that program is that your tuition is covered. So I didn't have to pay tuition for it.

I just had to pay from onboard, which was a huge, huge financial burden lifted off of me.

Definitely.

And then as long as you maintained a 3.0 GPA, you will automatically matriculate into the medical

school. So it's kind of like a way that I use to explain to people, it was like extending my

medical school for five years instead of four years. And it was such a huge blessing for me.

I was a psychology major, sociology minor. And like I said, I did obviously my science classes

to be able to start pharmacy school and do pharmacy school, but I didn't do as many

upper-level science courses and I realized that I really needed to have a better background,

especially in my biological sciences. So taking courses like biochemistry again and taking even

courses like immunology and those things were so helpful. So by the time that I literally started

medical school, truthfully, I will not lie to you, medical school was quite a breeze for me

because the summer scholars and post-bacc program prepared me so well. And I was taking pretty much

the courses that I did that I just kind of floated through those first two years.

I'm glad you spoke on the post-bacc program because most pre-medical students, at least,

when I was a pre-med, I didn't even know that there was post-bacc programs in medical schools

and that that was even an option. And when I did find that it was an option, I didn't really think

about it the way you just said it. So I'm glad you spoke on that. And I actually did a master

slash post-bacc program before I went to med school and I agree with you. It's the best thing

that's ever happened. It makes your life easier. It does. And I think the thing is that obviously

if your goal is to go to medical school, your goal is to go to medical school. But

sometimes for certain individuals, it may be beneficial and helpful. I always say that

when someone asks me whether or not a gap year or a post-bacc year or even post-bacc two years is

helpful, I do agree that it is. I think that you have to be careful at times. And I will always

say that you have to realize that there is a certain limit, an aggregate, to the amount of

loans that you can take out before you may have to take out additional loans. And loans are just

that. You have to pay them back. So I would always tell people just be careful about certain things.

But post-bacc programs especially that are geared towards things like guaranteed admittance if you

meet certain conditions or conditional admittance, I should say, are so invaluable. And it allows

for you to be able to not only get a deeper understanding of the material because that's

what it's all about. It's not about a grade. It's about really being able to

master that material so then you can build upon it when you're starting to learn other biomedical

sciences and when you're starting to understand disease processes and treatment plans. If you

don't have that foundation, there's no way in the world that you'll be able to understand when we

start to talk about the treatment of diabetes or the pathophysiology behind it.

You're 100% right. So now we already talked about how you got into medical school. So now you're in

medical school. How can you describe your experience at medical school? Did you do

some extracurriculars? Did you do any research? And the most important question that everyone

wants to hear about is did you take the USMLE or not?

So those are great questions to answer. Two of those questions, I was, and I've always been a

social butterfly. I know, right? I did quite a bit of extracurricular activities when I was in

medical school. So I was actually the first DO to be named as the Region 5 Director for the Student

National Medical Association. Region 5 consists of the states of Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana.

So I was able to be on the national board for that organization, which is a student-ran organization.

So it's great to be able to say that, hey, I'm on the board of this multimillion-dollar organization.

I'm sorry to interrupt, but for the pre-medical students, could you describe what, because you're

describing SNMA, what SNMA is for, like what was it for and what it stands for?

Oh, yes. SNMA, Student National Medical Association, it started back in 1964 from

1967. Oh gosh, I want to get in trouble. But the Student National Medical Association is actually

initially branched off from the National Medical Association. This was the medical association that

was primarily for black African-American physicians that were not allowed access into membership at

the American Medical Association. That was quite important because at the time, back when the

National Medical Association was started in the early 1900s, if you were not a part of the American

Medical Association, you could not sit as a practicing physician in a hospital. You were

not granted privileges. So the National Medical Association was helpful because you needed to be

a member of association to be able to have credentials at a hospital. Well, the Student

National Medical Association started off with the mission of being able to diversify as well as to

provide resources for minority medical students that are going on to physicians. It is well over

5,000 members strong. It is student-ran totally, so it is not a part of the National Medical

Association, although we have a strong affiliation with it. Then the other important part of this is

it provides so many different resources to not only medical students, but also undergraduate

and high school students to be able to learn how to matriculate into medical school.

And so once you actually get a chance to be exposed to it, you will realize how many different

programming that are available. The national conferences are a way for minority candidates

as well as residency programs to be able to engage with each other. And I cannot tell you

how invaluable it is for recruitment season, especially now sitting as a program director,

to be able to connect with students from the Student National Medical Association.

So a huge organization. And to be part of the leadership, especially as an osteopathic

physician or an osteopathic medical student at the time, remember there weren't a whole

heck of a lot of osteopathic medical schools, especially back in the 60s. So to start to see

at the time that I was in leadership in the mid-2000s, that was when we had our first

chair of the board that was an osteopathic physician and the first pre-medical board member,

and so many different leaderships that we started seeing DO students becoming a part of,

especially in the Student National Medical Association. So it was a huge thing for me.

But in addition to that, I wind up being active in so many other different student organizations,

as well as I did research in geriatrics, believe it or not, and I'm a pediatrician.

But research is research. And so also the question that you asked for me was,

did I take the USMLE or did I take Comlex? So I was very fortunate enough to have a

brilliant mentor, who I still consider to be my mentor, Dr. Jay Shubrick, who's now out in

California. But I remember he said something to me that was so profound, and I really held on to it.

And he said, you know, Ty, if they don't want to take your boards, they don't want your degree.

So why are you trying to do their boards? And I thought to myself, like, that's so true. I

don't have to take the USMLE. I just have to take the Comlex. It's what's required for my school.

And it's part of my profession. That's what I need. I don't need the USMLE.

So I was very set against it personally. It's not to say that I haven't had some of my friends who

took the USMLE, especially if they were interested in certain residency programs that traditionally

have been more, quote unquote, competitive or more of the good old MD system. However,

as the single accreditation has occurred with ACGME, I am a huge proponent of pushing for all

programs to accept Comlex because it's not difficult to be able to understand our boards

or to be able to compare our boards with USMLE scores. And I just don't feel as if we need to

place an emphasis on our students to have to pay not only extra money, but also have to deal with

extra hoops to jump over. The time of trying to prove that we are just as good as or equal to

our empty counterparts is over. So that's my stance on it.

I agree with you. We're equals. We're both doctors and physicians.

Exactly.

Physicians. We work side by side with one another. And once we work side by side and our patients see

us side by side together, they can't really tell the difference. They just see the letters behind

our name. So just speaking on after you take the USMLE and you're done with med school now,

how was your application process to residency? And once in residency, how was your residency?

Did you encounter any obstacles as an osteopathic resident or anything like that?

So great question. So after I took the Comlex and it was time for me to make a decision

of where to go, I had a unique situation. So as part of Ohio University, we're one of the

few public osteopathic medical schools, I also signed a contract that stated that I would either

stay in the state of Ohio for five years after I finished because our tuition was subsidized by

the state of Ohio residents as part of a public institution, or I could satisfy that contract

requirement if I was to do a residency program that was in primary care and also was part of the

Ohio University Core or Center for Osteopathic Research Education Consortium. And so at the time

for pediatrics, there was only one program. That one program was the duly accredited at the time,

this was back in 2006, 2007. So only one program in Ohio at the time that also had the ALA as well

as the ACGME accreditation. That program was Nationwide Children's Hospital, Doctors' Hospital

West joint program. And so I was looking at all different possibilities and options. I'm originally,

like I said before, from Detroit and I always, when you were to ask me where would I want to work,

I always thought that I would work at Children's Hospital Michigan, which is in downtown Detroit,

because that was the pinnacle at the time when I was growing up of children's hospitals that

you went to. If you got sick, if you were really sick, you always went to children's.

So I thought, okay, that's where I wanted to go to work. And I also wanted to just kind of branch

out and see what other programs were available. And after I had got my scores back, I started

sending out applications and it's funny now that I say it, I look at some of the candidates now

when they're applying to how many programs? I'm like, wow, I applied to 20 programs and I got

15 interviews. The funny thing is that the only place that I got, I did not get an interview from

and they said it was because I did not take the USMLE was actually Seattle Children's University

of Washington's program. But otherwise I got interviews at not only at Nationwide Children's

but also at John Hopkins. I got interviews at Miami Children's, at Riley Children's in Indiana,

all over the place I wound up getting interviews. And so I was thinking to myself, well, again,

if you don't want my board, you don't want my degree, so why am I even talking to you

if that's the case? I got a chance to go and interview and it was quite interesting.

Being a black male DO in pediatrics is like being a triple minority. You are a unicorn of unicorns.

It's not a whole heck of a lot of us out there. And so it was quite interesting to be out there

on the interview trail. I remember just kind of every time I would go to an interview and say,

for instance, there were other candidates who were interviewing from different programs,

like so. Sometimes you'll be in a group of, this is obviously way pre-COVID, you'll be in a group of

candidates. And so if you're interviewing for ex-hospital, they may have all the candidates from

either EM candidates, family medicine candidates, Peds candidates, OB candidates. Everybody is kind

of in one group. And then afterwards you kind of split apart to your different programs.

And I remember a couple of times when I had that, I would start to follow the Peds group,

start to follow the Peds group and they're like, oh, ortho is that way or oh, EM is that way.

And I was like, no, I'm in Peds. I'm in the right place.

So I remember being out there and the great thing about being a unicorn is you get noticed,

oh, so well. And sometimes you get noticed for bad reasons, but also you get noticed for good

reasons. And so I remember just going and just having such a great time meeting so many different

wonderful people. And I was torn between Nationwide, which would have satisfied my contract,

as well as Children's Hospital of Michigan, which was kind of like

the epitome of what I wanted to be at the time. So I had to make a tough decision. It was really

tough. And my heart is with all of the candidates right now as they are getting ready to certify

their rank lists for those pre-mints who don't know. You have two applications that you kind

of got to go through. The first one is kind of to apply to different residency programs.

And the second one is to submit what we call a rank list that programs submit,

medical students submit, and then you kind of match each other up to see if you are kind of like,

it's almost like Valentine's Day. Do I like you? Check yes or no. Do you like me? Check yes or no.

If we match, we match. And so I certified my list and I had put Nationwide Children's is number one

and Children's Hospital of Michigan is number two. And I got a chance to check my email that day

and saw that I got my number one choice. So Nationwide Children's is where I went.

When I was there, the interesting thing is that I was the third class to be part of the duly

accredited program because it just recently had started at the time. And I was the first class

where everything was done over at Nationwide Children's. Before me, the first two years,

half of your time was spent at Doctors' Hospital, the other half was spent at Nationwide. But

my year, everything was done at Nationwide. And it was a cohort of 42 interns that I was in,

five or six of us were DOs, five of us from the dual program and one person who did just the

categorical program, so the program that wasn't duly accredited. And I remember just kind of being

in residency and I know that my cohorts didn't mean anything negatively by it, but I kind of

have a pause. We would be having a conversation about something. I'm like, oh, you could do

osmopathic manipulative medicine for this. You can do OMM for this. And they were like, oh yeah,

that's right. I totally forgot you were a DO. And some people were like, oh yeah, great. They

didn't know I was a DO. But then I'm thinking to myself like, well, I paid a lot of money to get

this degree. Why am I not demonstrating to you that I was a DO? Because it's something that

set me apart here, right? So that's when I definitely strived to make sure that I was

incorporating more osteopathic principles and practice into my practice, because I really

wanted to... There's a DO difference and I still stand by that. And so that was something that

it wasn't a negative connotation that some people may have assumed that I have a barrier for being

a DO. It was more so for me that I was like, let me make sure that you don't forget. Because

being a DO to me is just as important as me being black. I'm so pro-black, it makes your head spin.

It's who I am. It's part of my identity as well as being a DO. It's who I am. It's part of my

identity. And even though it doesn't make up all of who I am, it definitely is a huge part of me.

So I want to make sure that I'm expressing myself and I'm making myself known through my practice,

through who I am. And not just with OMM, but just with every way I practice.

That's the first time I've ever heard being a DO kind of described like that.

So I'm glad you actually spoke about using OMM and kind of sticking to your osteopathic principles

during your residency. Do you use that in your day-to-day practice? Not just the principles,

but do you use manipulation in your practice? And also another question is when you were exiting

residency and when you were close to being done, how were you and how did you go about looking for

a job? Oh, that's a great question. So to answer your first question, not only do I use OMM in my

practice, I actually created in my residency program a OMM curriculum for my pediatric

residents. Not only for my osteopathic residents, but my allopathic residents go through that same

curriculum. Everyone goes through it. So yes. And then we also, in conjunction with the family

medicine department at Morristown Medical Center, which also has an OMM and an OMM fellowship,

we actually created an OMM clinic that we do once a month. I can't lie to you and say that this has

been going on since COVID. COVID changed a little bit of things. So we haven't been able to do the

clinic over the past couple of months, but we're starting back with it. But we have an OMM trained

faculty member that will come with me and we will actually have, or even the OMM fellows,

we will have come because I can obviously supervise the OMM fellows and be able to

do OMM in clinic and have not only conversations about any patient that walk through that door,

how would we treat that patient, whether it's a well child visit or if it's an ear infection or

whatever have you. How can we treat that patient just as we typically will treat a patient in

pediatrics, but how can we also think about this from an OPP OMM standpoint as well?

So all of our residents go through that, including our MD residents. I actually teach a

start off with doing a back to basics when you first come into residency. So that's the first

lecture that you get because it's a lecture series. This allows for our osteopathic residents part of

me to be able to get a background into OMM and then, or just kind of like a refresher course,

right? Because it's been a while since we all talked about TART and Friatt's law and all those

wonderful things, right? But then it also gives my MD residents understanding of like, what the

heck are they talking about when they say TART? Or what the heck are they talking about when they

say somatic dysfunction? This is it. This is what we're talking about. When we're talking about

direct, this is what this means. And breaking it down and showing them like, yo, this is not just

a hooey-fooey magical thing. This is actually basic biomedical sciences that we're putting into

practice. So we do that. But going back into your second question, which is, how did I find a job

or what was I looking for when I was finishing out? I mean, it was quite interesting. So I had some

family issues. Both my parents were ill at the time that I was finishing residency. I was asked

to be chief resident. And so I was the second DO ever at Nationwide Children to be named as chief

resident, or one of the chief residents, rather. But I wind up having, both my parents becoming

quite ill. My mom had another primary cancer. My father wound up having end-stage renal disease.

So it was time for me to go out and start working because if just one more thing would have happened,

it would have financially devastated them. And I knew that I couldn't just sit still without

being able to financially support them if they needed it. And so I wind up looking for

positions. And it was not difficult at all for me to find a position, especially in primary care

pediatrics, which I did. After I left that position, I was fortunate enough to be able to have

my mentors that were back at Nationwide Children who were like, hey, why don't you come back home

when that job didn't work out as well? And when I came back, it was like, well, I know that you're

really interested in weight management, and we're starting this new primary care obesity network,

and we want you to be a part of it, and we want you to do this additional training work, which I

was like, this is great. This is what I always wanted to do. And so I was able to do that,

and that carried me throughout my career. So yeah, just thank God it worked out.

That's really awesome. I'm really sorry to hear about your parents, though. That's not something

you want to go through during the hardest time of your career, residency, and whatnot. I'm really

sorry. Yeah. We all have our challenges. We all have our struggles that we have to go through

each and every day. And there is not going to always be sunshine and blue skies when we're

going through this. But if anything, it allowed me to be able to have a better understanding and

have more empathy for my patients as they're going through things as well. You're so humble.

You should just say that. That's what made you the most amazing doctor, because you were really,

you were an awesome physician. I'm proud to be a DO, just listening to an advocate like you.

Oh my gosh. That's awesome. Thank you so much. Seriously, that's, like, I'm not even being

facetious. It's really humbling to even hear you say that. I don't take that for granted at all.

I don't say that to everyone, too. So I mean it. So speaking about specialties and everything,

kind of moving away from OMM, I would love to know, are you, I guess, I don't want to ask,

are you happy with your specialty? But if you went back and did it all over again,

would you have chose a different specialty? No. And the reason why I tell you no is because

I thought about that question when people asked me about it. I bring it up all the time. I know

in my heart of hearts that I enjoy what I do. I probably would have did things a little bit

differently in a sense of what I have gone back and did that chief year. I would have probably

thought about doing maybe some additional things in my career. Sure, I probably would have. But my

specialty-wise, I would have not changed because I didn't really mesh with anything else. I enjoyed

OB, I enjoyed family, I enjoyed even ENT when I got a chance to do it. I really enjoyed those things,

but I didn't enjoy anything as much as I do with PEDs. And I just couldn't see myself. I could see

myself in a different career, which is funny because the career that I would have saw myself

as being is probably would have been a teacher if I wasn't a pediatrician, but I'm a teacher anyway.

So I was like, I'm doing the same thing that I thought I would do.

I used to be a teacher and you know what? I would never go back and do it again.

Because I have so much respect for teachers. I taught high school and it was tough. I don't

know how these teachers do it every day, but you really have to have a special heart. For you to

do pediatrics, I think the fact that you're saying that you can't think of another specialty and you

wouldn't have done it any other way means that you were made for this. And one last question,

the question we ask all of our guests on the podcast is if you had a piece of advice throughout

your education, throughout your career when you were growing up that you always think of,

what was it and what would you say to students currently that are going through hard times

and kind of not seeing that light at the end of the tunnel?

Yeah. You know, one piece of advice that sticked out to me that was the best advice ever was when

I was in the summer scholars program, we had student teachers and some of the students were

our teachers, so I got a chance to be a student teacher. One of the student teachers said to me

one time, and it was so true, he said, you have to learn how to become comfortable being

uncomfortable. And when he said that, I was like, you know, it hit me like a ton of bricks,

and I didn't realize how powerful it would have been until later on at this point in time my

career. And I say that so many times, I'm sure my students and residents are like, oh my God,

I'm so tired of you saying that, Dr. Winters, please stop. But it's so true. You have to learn

how to become comfortable being uncomfortable. And there are going to be so many situations

where you're going to be uncomfortable, you're going to be unsure about what to do, you're going

to be unsure about what is going to happen next or what lies next, but learning how to be able to

center yourself and to be able to say like, you know, no matter what comes, I'm going to be able

to deal with this, I'm going to be able to do it. And that's the key part of it. And it guided me

through so many different areas in my life. So that was definitely one piece of information that

if I can leave with anyone is just that we have a tendency to think that this life is supposed to be

comfortable. And I'm not saying that to be like, you know, oh, you don't know, or you're too young

to understand or blah, blah, blah, like, you know, some of the old folks would say. But literally,

we have a tendency, we all do, we all think that if a situation that we go through is a little bit

hard, you know, I told you I went through post-bac program to be able to start medical school.

If I was to say like, oh, well, if you're not going to let me in directly, then I'm not going to do

this. I wouldn't be here. We're talking to you right now, right? Things are going to be challenges

and that's what's going to happen. That's what's meant to be. It's so important, though, for us to

be able to learn how to be able to say like, you know what, not everything is going to always go

the way that I want it to go, but it'll work out just how I need it to work out. And even if it

doesn't seem like that at the moment, give it time. Keep on living. It will.

That is the perfect advice to end on. And with that, Dr. Winters, I really want to thank you

for being on our podcast and sharing your wonderful, inspiring story. Again, I'm proud of

you. I'm proud to be a DO and I'm proud to have advocates like you to speak with us and kind of,

you know, promote osteopathy to pre-medical students.

And I'm so happy that you are part of our profession. You continue to make us proud

and I just can't wait to see all of the great work that you're still going to do.

Thank you, Dr. Winters. And everyone, thank you so much for tuning in today.

And please follow us on all our platforms, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and please leave

a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. This concludes our episode of Do or Do Not.

Send all inquiries, comments, suggestions, and even let us know if there's someone you want us

to interview to do or do not podcast at gmail.com. Don't forget to like us on Facebook at do or do

not podcast for updates. If you enjoyed our podcast, please share it with your classmates

and administration. We have plenty of more interviews lined up and we're excited to share

them with you. This is Tianyu Sheng. Thank you guys so much for listening to Do or Do Not.