Our hosts continue introducing themselves, and this time, Dr. Angela Walker gives the center stage to Dr. Sylvia Morris. She reminisces about her childhood in Los Angeles and stresses the importance of a genuine support system in achieving personal growth. Dr. Sylvia looks back on her experiences at Berkeley and Georgetown, particularly the most memorable mentors who shaped her life and career. She also talks about how she was able to get her dream job: using media to improve public health.
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Support System: Welcome To Boss Leap Part 2
Introduction Dr. Sylvia E. Morris
We are back again with one of our introductory episodes. We just felt like we wanted to introduce ourselves in terms of who we are individually. We are as friends and why we came together to create this show called the Boss Leap. We are hoping that we can share within our platform the stories of women. Some that we know and many that we do not know. All that have powerful stories to tell about how they have created a life of love and passion in their professional lives, personal lives, and how they may have made some boss moves.
Some leaps in their lives and pivots. Ultimately, make it an interesting platform for us to learn more about each other. I have the pleasure of introducing Dr. Sylvia Morris. I don’t know if you have anything to say from the outset but I’m going to jump in and ask you some questions. I’ll open the floor if you have anything specific you want to say, Sylvia.
No, I’m just excited that we are leaping into the next adventure together. As we move forward doing Boss Leap, there’s going to be some incredible conversations that are authentic and just getting the word out about incredible women and sharing their stories. With that, I am ready.
Birth And Hometown
Let me start with one of the most incredible women in my life who I had the pleasure of meeting back in the early ‘90s. For you, tell me some of the basics. Tell me where you were born and where you grew up.
I am from Los Angeles, California. I was born at Queen of Angels Hospital. I was born on June 23rd, and I was born to Virgil and Dell Morris. My dad is originally from Texas from Denton and Midland, Texas. My mother was born in Crenshaw County, Alabama, but was raised in Saginaw, Michigan.
How did they end in LA?
My mother went to nursing school. I would say segregated nursing school in Chicago at Providence Hospital. It was a diploma program and worked in public health in the City of Chicago. The story I heard is that it was cold one winter, as it tends to be in Chicago and she thought, “I don’t need to spend another winter here,” and got a job in Los Angeles at LA County Hospital. Now, it’s like LA County USC. One of her classmates, Jean Gooden was from California in Northern California. A place called Stockton. I think she wanted to LA just on a whim. Unfortunately, I can’t ask her now but that is a question. My parents met at LA County USC. My father was in orderly and my mother was a nurse. The rest is history.
I did not know that. I didn’t know how they met.
My dad went to California because he was in the army and spent time in Northern California. There’s a base in Monterey. He was in the Korean War and some of his siblings had migrated to Southern California. A place called San Bernardino, and my dad was in LA.
They both stayed after that transition. They stayed in LA. As a child, what was it like growing up in LA? Was it like for you? I know your history, but you’re an only child.
I am.
What was that like growing up?
It was good. I am a classic LA girl. I know perhaps I don’t look like it, but I love the beach. I remember as a kid, we would go down to the beach and ride my bike. I ride my bike alone the bike path and play in the sand and sand castle and those things. Those are happy memories for me. We’d walk on the pier and have a little bite to eat. I’m very much a water person. We’re going to work on my swimming. That will come in the episodes.
LA, at that time, in the ‘70s and ‘80s, it was a good time to grow up. There was a community of Black professionals like in the Crenshaw District. I had Black doctors and I had a Black dentist. My mom was a nurse and all of her friends were nurses or teachers. I saw a community of Black professional. It was that thing of, if I see it then maybe I can be it. I don’t know if she was intentional about it or it was the circumstances, but that made a huge impression upon me. Inglewood was a very middle-class Black community. Everyone on my block, their parents were Educators or worked in Aerospace. We all went to school. It was just a nice little community of people.
My two experiences of the beach growing up, but still, I love the beach. It was Atlantic City.
That’s different.
Also, Galveston. Growing up, I went to the beach twice. It was just magical. It transported me. I envy the fact that you were able to go so often. As a kid, we shared that love.
Free entertainment because I’m sure, it was like, “I can put this kid in the car and we can drive 15 to 20 minutes to the beach. She can play all day and be tired, go home and don’t have to spend a whole lot of money.” I know that my mother was pretty pragmatic. That was part of it.
Memorable Mentors
Tell me when you’re growing up, were there any like teachers in your life? Anyone that made an impact in terms of influencing what you feel like your trajectory in life in terms of how you proceeded through making a career choice.
I always wanted to be a physician. That was the only thing that I’ve ever wanted to do. As I mentioned, my mom was a nurse. I saw it from early on, but I also had great teachers from kindergarten to 8th grade. I went to Inglewood Christian School and we had great teachers that encouraged us to stretch ourselves. My 3rd grade teacher, Miss Mayu. I remember her and Miss Mack Morris, who I am still in contact with. She was our 7th and 8th grade teacher.
Discipline was important and having a sense of selflessness is how I would describe it now. She made a huge impression upon us and made sure that we were able to achieve and knew that there were high standards. Once I got to high school, Mr. Mallon was my freshman English teacher. He wrote all of my letters of recommendation for some of the Ivy League schools when I applied to college. What was so notable is there was some conversation about, “I’m not surprised that you are applying.”
He encouraged me and that left in an indelible mark on what’s possible and stretching. I went to Co-Ed Catholic High School. My graduating class was somewhere in the 300s. When I think about the number of students that went on to higher education, there were a fair number but there was a much smaller number of people who want to the Berkeley’s or grounds or the Stanford of the world and being able to make the leap from middle-class Black girl in Los Angeles to higher education when my parents hadn’t gone to college.
My mom went to nursing school and later on, she went back and got her bachelor’s and master’s. I remember sitting in the classroom, probably I was in kindergarten or first grade. Being able to have the wherewithal to go to a major university and to be successful. Not always successful in science and we can get to that but knowing that I could do that. Finally, in college, we had a community of people who helped us. It was called TA.
We had mentors who helped us in the Sciences in particular and seeing Luanga, Sam, Lisa, and my mentors who were able to say, “No, you can do physics. You may have to do it twice.” I took Physics 88 twice but, “You can do this.” It was important for me to try and gain the confidence because when I showed up at Berkeley, I was like, “I was a good high school student,” but then you’re sitting in next to people who have physics and calculus in high school. I was like, “I didn’t have all that. How do I? I don’t know this.” It’s a confidence game. Long rambling answer.
Mother
That’s very good because you brought up two things that I want to talk about. One is your mom and a little bit more into her career path. Number two, one of the reasons why we wrote the book in terms of how we navigate our way to Georgetown and medicine. Sometimes, the path is not always the “traditional path.” I didn’t know the part about your mom. Tell me about what that was like. Your mother, who is raising this wildly intelligent child, had her nursing certificate and then went back to school with a kid. What was that like for you watching?
Sometimes, the right path to take is not always the traditional path. Share on XMy parents were divorced sometime in the early ‘70s. My father was always a part of my life and lived 15 to 20 minutes away from me. That’s how I claim Compton as well as Inglewood. When I think about my mom, from what I remember, the reason she went back to school is because working as a nurse was hard for her to pick me up from school in the afternoon. She didn’t have Summer’s off and she realized that, “If I teach nursing then I’ll have Summers off. I’ll have vacation time during the holidays. It will just help me as far as being a mother and mothering this willful young girl that I have here.”
I think that was the reason that she went back. She first went to Cal State LA and got her Bachelor’s. I honestly don’t remember what her bachelor’s was in, but she didn’t have a BSN then she went to graduate school. That’s what I remember at Cal State Long Beach because I remember that she would pick me up from school then we were driving down to Long Beach.
You know I’m a food person, so we would get to eat that Huff’s Hut. They were some hamburgers that I liked. Then we would go to the class and I would sit in the back of the class on the little desk and I would do my homework. Don’t ask me why I was doing first grade homework. Who knows what that was? She would be in the lectures and I knew I had to sit there and be quiet. Not bothering anyone and be still and then we would go home.
It was probably a couple times a week, but I remember that. My mother always was very pragmatic. First, she was teaching high school. It must have been a medical assistant class for Compton Unified. She taught at Compton High School. She started teaching at Compton Community College. She taught me the LVN program and the rest is history.
Berkeley
I didn’t know all that. That’s a Moxie. That’s a big time. You couldn’t help to be who you are. That’s beautiful. Tell us a little bit about life at Berkeley as a young Black female. It sounds like you had a robust minority association there particularly the medical support. We talked about that in the last episode. Something that I didn’t have initially.
I remember when my mother dropped me off at Berkeley. We had something called Summer Bridge. We could use the word minority at that time. All the minority students would come in some time in June and you would just have like an immersion to the University of California. We may have been there from 4 or 6 weeks, but the day that she dropped me off at the dorms. There was a great full dead shot. If you’ve ever seen a deadhead, as my mother is this very elegant woman and you see the dead heads. She’s like, “Are you sure you want to stay here?” I was like, “Yes, Mommy. This is great.” I’ve never seen anything like that in my life and I was like, “I’m away. I get to be away from this.”
My mother had rules and there were things. I was like, “I’m going to be here and you’re going to be six hours away. Absolutely, I want to stay here.” She made my bed and met my roommate for the summer. It was great. Berkeley was tough, though, academically. The Sciences, for me, it was hard because I didn’t have the level of preparation that some of my classmates had. Not as to say that I could not be successful, but it took more time, energy, and effort. Thank God, my college roommate who I’ve known since kindergarten. Her name is Tracy Thompson. She’s a dentist now.
We would be at the library posted up at Moffitt. I’m trying to think of the other library with long beautiful tables. After dinner, we go to the library. The library closed at midnight. We would be leaving at John at midnight going home or going back to our dorm and then starting everything over again the next day. Saturday, our study day. It would be shorter during football season because we always went to home games. Go Bears. Sunday, I didn’t stay close to the library out necessarily, but it was good to have someone who was in my immediate sphere who was also driven.
My mom dropped me off with the full expectation that I was going to graduate in at least four years. It was four and a half. In my degree, you may say five, but we don’t need to know all those details. I had the discipline in and of itself but it was good to have people around me. I mentioned T8. We called it EOPAA at that time and there was a very robust system to help students, Black students in particular or Black and Latino students in the sciences.
We had a Black pre-health program. That’s how I did volunteer work at UCSF. I worked in the ER and I literally printed the X-ray films. That tells you how old I am. They were not digital at that time. You had to print the film and take them over. I did that and then I did some time with a pediatrician. One of my undergrad classmates, her father, Dr. Carlton Lewis was an Oncologist for Kaiser. He always encouraged me. He’s like, “You can do it. It takes just a few people just to say, ‘You can do this.’ Don’t worry about it. You’re going to be fine.”
You mentioned it a little while back. There were so many people that came into first year of undergraduate with Texas A&M that wanted to go into medicine. As you said, depend on where you come from in school and it’s so hard then you’re told that, “If you’re not making A’s, you’re never going to get into medical school.” I know a lot of people that said, “I’ve got to change my major,” based on that little bit of experience.
It sounds wonderful. I just want to interject quickly because this is your time. For those readers, the takeaway is when you’re looking at schools, it depends on where you go and the support that is available at the school for some people. Some people have that in their families, but sometimes it’s depending upon the school and I didn’t know that. You probably didn’t either at the time how big of a difference that would make, but not having anything in place.
Surgeon General
When I went into school to have a lot of things in place and being able to see people that are doing it and to encourage. It can make a big difference in a young person’s life. I was curious what your experiences were there at Berkeley. I wanted to move on a little bit to Georgetown, because I have to say when I met you, I knew many things. You talked about your mom being regal. You were the regal one.
Dr. Sylvia Morris who was going to be our Surgeon General within eight years of graduating, you were it. As Carl, my husband would call you, Silky Sylvia. You just had that way about you of caring for yourself, which is translated and all the wonderful things you’ve done. Tell us about where that came from, the desire to be a Surgeon General and how that pushed you in the direction that you were going transferring from or go into medical school?
Lots of kind words. I’m just going to say, we both are card caring members of the mutual admiration society. I’m going to say thank you. The reason I wanted to be Surgeon General is my mother volunteered at the Los Angeles Union Rescue Mission. I went with her and I counted the pills in the makeshift Pharmacy. I don’t know how legal that is or what the rules are for that, but I was probably 9 or 10 and did that. There was a physician there, Dr. Fischa Net. He provided healthcare to the homeless, as we would call them now. I used the word unhoused, but we provided healthcare to patients that lived on skid row.
He provided compassionate care. He didn’t care that the person slept on the street or maybe they smelled bad or had lice or was mentally ill. He treated everyone with dignity. That said to me, “Everyone needs healthcare.” How do we provide care for most people? College came to understand the importance of public health. During med school, I met then Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders and worked with Maxine Waters and helped to write a pregnancy prevention program for my congressional district.
I came to understand how important it is to have legislation and policy that then is implemented for the health of the entire community. Later on we’ll get into why I went to public health school and those things in future episodes. Public health is important. My journey now, workwise, hasn’t necessarily evolved in doing public health practice in a traditional way, but I know that my public health training has made a huge impact on how I practice medicine.
Meeting Each Other
You see it that way, but I’ve known you for so long and the things that you have done in your career path, the media and educating. That is in and of itself a form of public health and making the public aware of health things that they should be concerned about. Also things that they can do preventatively to take care of themselves. You have fulfilled a lot of that purpose that you had back then. Tell us a little bit about us and how we became friends. What do you think brought us together?
The public needs to be aware of what they can do preventatively to take care of themselves. Share on XI remember probably early on, we met at Georgetown University School of Medicine. It was Summer of ‘92. We were all in the classroom. There were 21 of us. It’s a number that sticks in my brain for gems. I remember you and Val, Valerie Lewis Morris had just got married. I was like, “Wow.” They got married before they entered medical school. I thought, “Oh, okay.”
There was that part of my brain and I was like, “They are wives and students. They are going to be very focused and intentional about their studying. Let me sit next to these ladies so that I can make sure that I’m successful.” Again, my mother dropped me off at Georgetown so that I could become a doctor. There was no time for half step and the shenanigans, as some may say. I remember you were always very calm, always warm, and inviting. I was like, “She’s cool,” and we started sitting together.
I don’t know how we started seeing together in the library but we did. The cool thing is you two like to sit at the table. We’d say that the table, you, me and Val. I was always writing longhand on some piece of paper or some flashcard or whatever and you would be studying. You and Val grounded me because my internal person is like, “How am I going to do this? What’s going on? I don’t know.” You and Val were like, “You got this. We’re going to learn this stuff and we’re going to keep moving forward.”
From that, and I remember going to your house, you and Carl and just thinking, “It’s cozy. It’s warm here.” There was always something to eat. It was tasty. We worked together a lot at Student National Medical Association. That was a good experience, budding leadership, learning how to organize people, and working with personalities. When I think of you, I never remember not knowing you as I think about our 30 plus years a friendship
Same from day one. You find your tribe. It’s part of what we talked about in our book. Hopefully, at that stage in life, you find who supports you mentally and emotionally and brings out the best in you. If I could tell my younger self, try to find those people, for the most part, lifts you up versus bringing you down. We always have our down days, but you want people that have similar light that shine that same lightning. We were given similar lights when we were born.
I honestly don’t know how I would have finished medical school without you folks. I just can’t. I can’t imagine doing it without the support that we provided for each other. For our readers, friendships evolve. There is not always that every day, touch base, checking and those things, but knowing that I can send you a text and you have an innate way of knowing when I need to talk. You’re like, “Do you want to talk?” I’m like, “I do.”
We talk for a few moments and then everything is good. It’s just important to, as you say, have people in your life that you can count on and that support you and allow you to be your most authentic self. You’ve seen my warts and we still are good friends. You allow me to, hopefully, evolve. With friendships that you’re not able to evolve, that’s when the friction comes and perhaps, the following out. Another episode.
Agreed 100%. It just taught you growth. Maturity is being able to identify when it’s time to move on. Moving on can be gentle but it has to sometimes be firm and resolve in terms of, this is not serving me well. I don’t see any of moving on. You’re with me to the end here.
You’re stuck to me, Angela.
Valuable Advice
It sounds like you’ve already given some advice, but what advice do you have for young Physicians? What would you say to young Sylvia? Whether it’s from you know high school, college or medical school. What type of advice can you give?
For young Physicians, my advice is to investigate the things that you think you may have an inkling to like. I wish I had done probably dermatology as a rotation in medical school. I didn’t do it. That’s probably the biggest one. I wish I had gotten an MBA. One of my mentors in medical school said to me, Dr. Eisenberg.
He said, “Have you thought about getting an MBA?” In my naivety, I was like, “No, Dr. Eisenberg. I want to be a public health Physician. I’m going to public health school and I’m going to save the world.” Not exactly those words, but you don’t know what you don’t know. I tell everyone that is interested in public health in particular and who has interest in perhaps thinking about your career beyond the bedside. If you have an inkling, maybe get an MBA or a masters in medical management. Certainly, we can talk about that and we will talk about that in future episodes.
Future physicians who are interested in public health must start thinking about their careers beyond the bedside. Share on XWe have a lot to talk about.
We do indeed.
One of the most important things you mentioned, Dr. Eisenberg, one of my mentors as well. He’s an amazing human and amazing physician. We were able to see him in his element. I remember going to his home and seeing him as a dad and a husband. Those are people that rare that you meet. People that just have that whole package that make an impact on you, but he mentored you. We talk a lot and will be talking to a lot of mentors in the show, but how important it is to ask people some of the important questions and to seek mentors.
Media Practice
For us, as Physicians as you mentioned, maybe if you had sought out a dermatologist, you would have known it wasn’t as gross as we thought it was. The little experience that we had was a very interesting pathway in medicine, but identifying those mentors. I’m glad that you mentioned him. That’s important. No matter what you do in life. If you want to be a carpenter, having somebody in your life that does it well and can give you some advice along the way and being open to hearing those things. Very important. Describe a little bit about what you do now as we talked about some of the things that you thought you were going to do. What are you doing in your career?
I can say that I have a dream job and I’m saying that hesitantly because the things that you pray for and then when it happens, sometimes you forget. “I prayed for this and I wanted to be in this situation.” As you mentioned, I have spent a lot of time working to use the media to improve public health. That has been my tagline for at least the last decade. I’ve had all the jobs. We look at our friend group, I have had lots of jobs in and out of clinical medicine, as a consultant, and academics.
Now, I work for a large HMO. I’m an employed physician. The beauty of my job is that not only do I practice at the bedside, so I’m an internist by training. I work as a hospitalist and I work in an observation unit, so if you’re too sick to go home, but not sick enough to go to the hospital. I do that about half the time. I have an administrative role where I work with doctors who take care of our patients at outside hospitals and try to make sure that they receive the best care. If possible, we bring them back to our mothership, shall we say.
The most fun part of my job that I had prayed for is that I do marketing for my organization. I’ve done a lot of summer health clips for local media. I represent our organization in the community doing community talks, moderating, and as a panelist. I enjoy it and I am super grateful to be at this point. I remember being on the struggle bus for probably about the first decade or decade and a half of my career.
I finished training in 2001 and got my first job out coming out of residency. I was a hospitalist. A traditional hospitalist and I remember thinking, “Is this it? Is this what I have to do for the next 25-30 years?” Remember, I owed $180,000 when I finished medical school. I had to work but I was like, “How am I going to do this?” Hence, all the different jobs, but I am so grateful to where I am.
No job is perfect. Remember, I work for somebody. There are pluses and minuses with that, but being able to be in the position where I feel like I work with people who are committed to taking great care of people patients and also I get some of me into it and I am doing the media and community talks and all of these things. I feel good. That’s what I’m doing now.
You talked about in one of our previous episodes, the leaping from the lily pads. That journey has brought you to this place and I’ve had the luxury of seeing all of these steps that makes this the most profound moment in your career and you’re able to do all the things I knew you could do but also be happy and feel fulfilled in doing it. I’m very happy and extremely proud that you’re in the position that you’re in. Kudos to you.
Thank you.
Message To Younger Self
I could do this all day long, but that’s not the purpose of this episode. Lastly, a question you asked me or maybe I already asked you, but if you could say something to your younger self, to younger Sylvia, what would you say? In terms of advice or knowing. Maybe what you know now or what your life has been like up to this point. Do you have any advice?
I tell everyone now, have more fun and because I am a planner. I will say that I have lots of people in my life that loved me but I didn’t have a whole lot of safety net. If me going to Berkeley, I had to be successful at Berkeley and Georgetown, because I didn’t have any plan B. That is a blessing but also can be a curse because I was like, “We’re driving down this road. We’re going to continue down this road. I don’t have time for any distractions.”
I think being intentional about fun and certainly, don’t get me wrong. We’ve done girls’ trips. I’ve done a lot of cool stuff and I’m trying to use the word and more. Sometimes the message that I heard growing up, “Go to school.” “Get a good job.” “Be an upstanding citizen.” There was no talk about fun in that or joy. Now, at this point where I am in my life, I know that’s important and it’s infectious. It’s a part of who we are as human beings. I tell people to have more fun.
Episode Wrap-up
That’s what we’re going to do with Boss Leap. I am so excited to be doing this with you. I hope that we can transfer our love of life and our joy and what we’re doing to the audience. Hopefully, address issues, concerns, and topics that are important to other women that might be reading. Thank you so much, Dr. Sylvia Morris. We appreciate you sharing and opening up. As I know you to be a super fantastic and interesting person. I know you’ll be sharing a lot more in our future episodes. Until then. I want to say to you and to our readers, may you be well.
Thank you, Angela. May you be well.
Important Links
- Dr. Sylvia Morris – Linkedin
- Union Rescue Mission
- Maxine Waters
- Student National Medical Association
- THE GAME PLAN: A Woman’s Guide to Becoming a Doctor and Living a Life in Medicine