In maternal health, race matters. In the U.S., it’s evident in the statistics and disparities in maternal- and infant-health outcomes. HealthPartners is working to help reverse the trends of health inequities and close gaps in the disparities of birth outcomes with family-centered care, high reliability and health equity. Dr. Corinne Brown-Robinson, the vice chair of the OB-GYN department and medical director of the ultrasound department at HealthPartners and medical co-chair of the Children’s Health Initiative, shares her personal and professional experiences with pregnancy and childbirth, national statistics that show disparities in birth outcomes for Black and Indigenous birthing people and trust’s role in the patient-provider partnership.
In maternal health, race matters. In the U.S., it’s evident in the statistics and disparities in maternal- and infant-health outcomes. HealthPartners is working to help reverse the trends of health inequities and close gaps in the disparities of birth outcomes with family-centered care, high reliability and health equity.
Dr. Corinne Brown-Robinson, the vice chair of the OB-GYN department and medical director of the ultrasound department at HealthPartners and medical co-chair of the Children’s Health Initiative, shares her personal and professional experiences with pregnancy and childbirth, national statistics that show disparities in birth outcomes for Black and Indigenous birthing people and trust’s role in the patient-provider partnership.
Hosts: Kari Haley, MD, and Steven Jackson, MD
Guest: Corinne Brown-Robinson, MD
HealthPartners website: Off the Charts podcast
Got an idea? Have thoughts to share? We want to hear from you. Email us at offthecharts@healthpartners.com.
Kari Haley:
He's a rehab doctor from Chicago.
Steven Jackson:
She's an emergency medicine doctor from the Twin Cities.
Kari Haley:
Together, we're examining the health equity emergency.
Steven Jackson:
Inviting voices for change without the cue cards.
Kari Haley:
I'm Dr. Kari Haley.
Steven Jackson:
I'm Dr. Steven Jackson, and this is Off the Charts
Both, together:
And this is Off the Charts.
Steven Jackson:
Well, welcome to our show. We are very excited to have what I think will be a very informed conversation with our very own Corinne Brown-Robinson. She holds several titles. Hope you guys have a minute. She is the vice chair of the OB-GYN department here at HealthPartners. Also, the medical director of the HealthPartners ultrasound department and the medical co-chair of our children's health initiative. Welcome, Corinne Brown-Robinson.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Well, thanks for having me.
Steven Jackson:
Well, on our show we talk a lot about a lot. We talk about trust and I have a feeling that we're going to talk about trust. We talk about the weather and we end up on trust somehow. But one of our central themes that we want to address with you being an expert and just being just so great at what you do, is just the importance of Black maternal health, as well as children's health. That's a big subject and I don't know how you want to start, but for the first time ever, you're the cohost. Just joking here.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Oh, wow.
Kari Haley:
Can dive right in wherever you feel fit.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Sure, sure. I think of all of those titles that you so beautifully said, my most important title is a mom. I think that the last few years when Black maternal health has become more popular and it's been in the national news, I think a lot of us that have been taking care of Black women are like, "Finally, duh," things that we've been seeing and knowing for a long period of time. But it wasn't until I myself was pregnant and had babies early and experienced that disparity of care in my own pregnancy and postpartum period at the institute that I worked and delivered babies, then I'm like, "If it's happening to me, then it certainly is going to happen to patients that don't have the voice or the platform that I have." So it was always a personal passionate subject for me and now it's even more just because it happens every single day.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
I think that when people are shocked and awed with the statistics of Black women and Native women are two to three times more likely to die in pregnancy. I think that anecdotal statistic is great, but when you have a patient that sits in front of you and say, "Please don't let me die when I have a baby," or I have friends that have called me and say, "What can I do to not die, because I'm a Black woman?" It doesn't matter that I am a physician. It doesn't matter that I have a PhD, that my statistics are worse than a less than high school educated white woman, what can I do to not die? That's where you alluded to trust, trust comes in. Just lots and lots of trust that many people don't have because of multiple ways, I think we can kind of move with that. But I think that a lot of it is trust, which is key.
Kari Haley:
Yeah, I know when we had a previous episode, we were talking about how especially with women and during pregnancy, I mean, it's a huge piece. I mean, you are not only yourself, but your unborn fetus child is also a patient. And that just amplifies that level and need for trust. We've done this with a couple of our other co-physicians, but I'd just like to hear your story. How did you get here? What made you decide medicine and then OB-GYN and ultrasound and all of those other titles that you hold?
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Well, I was born a coal miner's daughter. No, I was not. I think that I never wanted to be anything else outside of a physician. I had a doll hospital, I did complex surgeries on a lot of my dolls. I used a Tonka truck as an ambulance. There were no physicians in my family, not a lot of my family even went to college. So it wasn't anything I saw, it was just something that I wanted.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
I went to college with every intention of going to medical school and then I had an injury in my senior year of college and I took a break for three years and I worked in the community. Then I went to med school, I did my rotations and hated my OB rotation and loved my surgery rotation, but didn't like myself on surgery. So after a lot of contemplation, I decided that OB was right for me and that is how I got here. With ultrasound, I just loved ultrasound as a part of our training and it's such an integral part of our field so I leaned into that and here we are.
Steven Jackson:
Now here, being St. Paul, Minnesota. Where are you from?
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
I am from Maryland, the eastern side of Maryland, about two hours east of Washington, D.C., in the country, a country girl. I did my training in Michigan in the Detroit area. Then after a series of different events, I ended up in another M state of Minnesota here in practice.
Steven Jackson:
Well, we're so happy to have you.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Well, I'm glad to be here.
Kari Haley:
Can you speak a little bit for our listeners, what are some of the disparities that are out there? And any of the thoughts of why we're having those disparities?
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Yeah, there is a great article through our governing body, the American College of OB-GYN. They looked at all aspects of gynecology as obstetrics and abnormal uterine bleeding, fibroids, anything. At every level there is a difference in how women of color, namely Black women, are treated and the outcomes. All of that, we like to always blame socioeconomics, we like to blame environment, but it is based on bias and institutional racism. All of that is woven into the DNA of this country. There's a long history, even in the history of gynecology of historic trauma, the marginalization of Black bodies. Lots of the things that we do every day is based on the experimentation on enslaved women. How we do C-sections, how we do many of our gynecologic repairs, how we know how diseases process because many Black and brown women are not being treated in the right way.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
A lot of times we think that it's so long ago, it doesn't affect us. It absolutely affects us today because when you walk into a room and no one looks like you, you don't know what they're talking about, it is a very vulnerable experience. I have a lot of patients that see me, they're like, "You're a Black woman, you're the doctor? Oh, I'm going to be fine." I see it all the time, I've had patients, I don't say a word. They just fall into my arms because of all of the things and I am the receptacle of all the experiences they've had in many health care settings. Without saying a word, that is that laying down of trust with me.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
I always have to say, "I can't be everywhere and everything to everyone, but I am really blessed to work with a team of providers that we all share the same mindset and we are really passionate about treating all of our patients with care." Recognizing that there's a lot that brought you here and there's things that we can do to establish that foundation of trust that has been fractured for generations.
Steven Jackson:
You often hear that trust is hard to win or build, but easy to tear down or destroy. In your personal practice or even personal life, how hard has it been to build trust, say with your patients or your patients' families? How hard has that been for you?
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
There have been many circumstances that it hasn't been that hard to build trust. I always liken when we work on labor and delivery, there are acute situations that happen very, very quickly. There are times that very fast decisions have to be made for life saving measures. You have to establish trust pretty quickly in order for someone to just say, "I'm giving my life and my baby's life to you to handle with care." A lot of times it's just me sitting down next to people and looking them in the eye and say, "I'm going to take good care of you," that's how it's been. It's also on the flip side, there are circumstances when I, as a Black woman, walk into a room and they're like, "I've been handed the trash," because I'm not seen as the doctor. I'm seen as the orderly, or they're like, "Please go get the head doctor, the real doctor in charge." I have a little bit of a petty streak. Have I walked out of the room and come back in and say, "Hello." But that is there too.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
And even in those very challenging circumstances, I have to check my own bias and I have to establish a level of trust to take care of somebody that doesn't want me to take care of them. But I'm in a situation that I'm the best person to take care of you right now and I've been able to navigate that. We all have places to learn, areas that we can learn, but it's there. And even in those situations, I always tell our residents, "This patient was very difficult." I remember one of the first C-sections I did as an attending physician was a patient that had a giant swastika on her abdomen. It was huge. It was just really, really big. I walk in and I'm sure that she wasn't real pleased to see me. I said, "I'm going to take really good care of you. In order to do that though, I have to be in a place to do that, so I have to cover up your tattoo. In order for me to focus on the task at hand, to do the best thing for you and for your baby, I got to cover it up."
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
I had to establish that boundary for myself, so I always use it as a teaching point that yes, there are challenges, but you have to rise above that challenge. There are times that it's not going to feel great, but we have a greater duty and call. Afterwards there's space to process, but in the moment you have to do that. In that moment, even though I was the representative of everything that this patient was against, she trusted me to do what I had to do and I did.
Steven Jackson:
I was just going to say, this is in a way adjacent to what we're talking about, but I think it speaks to the fact that just like there needs to be trust established, which goes both ways, I think it's OK for us as clinicians to establish boundaries. Because in a business of customer service or service oriented, I don't know, thing like medicine and many other entities out there, you hear the customer's always right. And I agree with that to a point, but there have to be boundaries because as clinicians, we're not here to be abused. But at the same time we are here to help and we are here to look past differences and shortcomings and any and all that other stuff, because we swore to help you and to keep you alive, so to speak. That's an awesome story.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Absolutely agree and we swore to help you, we didn't swear to be abused by you.
Steven Jackson:
That's right.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
I mean, we are knee deep, it feels like neck deep in COVID. It doesn't feel like there's any end sight. We are stressed, our patients are stressed. We are absorbing all of that fear and that disappointment and that depression. The angst of society falls on us and it's really important for us to take care of our self, to establish those boundaries when we can, because we are tired. We're very, very tired. Very, very tired.
Kari Haley:
Very, very tired.
Steven Jackson:
Very, very tired.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Yes, very.
Kari Haley:
I mean, I can relate to the setting boundaries piece. As an emergency medicine physician, we see the spectrum of where people are at in their life, in their health process. I mean, there's definitely stories where I can say I just stepped out of the room and said, "When we can talk to each other like adults, I will come back in and I am going to take great care of you. But I can't continue this conversation the way it is." As a fellow mother as well, particularly one who didn't have the best experience I would say, during at least my first pregnancy in medical school, I'd love to hear a little bit more of your story.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Oh, OK. Let's see, there's many layers to that story. I delivered early at another facility outside of this institute. I actually went into labor at my baby shower, dancing. Then I'm like, "Hmm, that's probably a contraction," and in pure physician fashion, blew it off until we had reached critical mass. Then my doctor's like, "Please come in because I need to pick up my granddaughter and I don't want to be late." I'm like, "Oh, for your granddaughter, I'll come in." She's like, "Of course, you would. Not for yourself, you're going to do it for somebody else, sure." So I ended up in full-minute, pre-term labor at 34 weeks with my twins and then they go to the NICU. Great, they're in great care.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
One of the postpartum days, I can't remember, I get a social work consult. I don't know why. I think they did it for all pre-term mothers. I remember the social worker came in and she's asking me a litany of questions. One of the questions was, what's your highest level of education? I was like, "I'm a physician here," and she laughed and says, "Yeah, right." I was like, "Oh, OK." I was like, "Well yeah, I'm an OB-GYN here," and then she looks at me and then she's like, "Uh-oh. Oh, no, I don't have to ask these questions." I'm like, "No, you will continue asking all of your questions. I want you to be uncomfortable right now. I want you to live in it." That happened and I was like, "Well, that's great."
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Then I sashay my way down to the NICU. My twins were in different rooms and the nurse is like, "Oh, I need to see your ID. There's no way that you're this baby's mom because you're too dark."
Steven Jackson:
They said that out loud?
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Yeah, they said it out loud, this isn't in 1965, this is within the past 10 years or so. I was like, "Wow, OK." Again, I'm thinking, "I work here. I admitted that baby over there a couple of days ago." This is happening to me. Then I get discharged, I end up with incredible swelling of my hands, couldn't feel my hands. I was borderline compartment syndrome and that sort of thing. Just a trapping of fluid, it was numb, tingly. I called my doctor, she's like, "You're fine. I mean, it's not a big deal." She's like, "You know how this goes." This isn't my doctor, this is somebody else that's on call. Pain diminished, all of the things checked off. She's like, "It's A-OK." Then I went to the ER and they were like, "You're not OK. You're not OK at all."
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
All of these little things, me, I can voice, I can write a sternly worded email. I can meet with directors and that sort of thing and say, "This was a terrible situation." I can write up that nurse, I can do those sort of things. But most patients can't do that and won't do that and they're not emboldened enough to do it, so they stuff it down. They're like, "I guess this is happening. I'm not going to go anywhere else." Sadly, there are patients that don't have any access to go anywhere else so they just endure and they continue on and it just builds up this mistrust. I hate going to the doctor, I'm not going to go to the doctor. They're just going to treat me terribly. They're not going to listen to me. I'm just not going there.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
It happened to me, there's stories of celebrity people, people hold celebrities in high esteem that nearly die during their birth experience. These are the things that happen. It wasn't because of anything else. I'm a nice lady, I didn't make a big scene. It was because I was Black and that's the long and the short of it and it's terrible. I think that when people experience these levels it's not microaggression at all, it's very macro.
Kari Haley:
That is in your face.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
It is in your face and you've experienced it for a lifetime. Any person of color has experienced some level of this and sometimes you normalize. You're like, "Yep, there we go."
Steven Jackson:
Or you're looking for it.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
And you're looking for it and then you over correct and you become defensive against it. When you come into a health care setting, you are vulnerable, you are hurt, you are ready to fight. Then you get the combative patient, little swirly thing on you because-
Steven Jackson:
Don't get me started.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Because you have dealt with this and other things, on top of someone looked at you funny in the waiting room. Or someone followed you around trying to touch your kid's hair in the grocery store. It just happened to me. It's just all of these things converge onto a vulnerable moment. And many people don't understand it, they don't have that lived experience, you've never felt that and so you're like, "I've just been dealing with this forever," so they brush it off.
Steven Jackson:
Well, what I love about our forum here, is that we're giving our listeners basically a key on the inside of what's really happening. It's not uncommon for patients to have security called on them without someone truly operating in the spirit of curiosity to figure out well, why are you angry? Or why didn't you take the medicine that is part of your treatment plan? We quickly label, and I'm just going to say people of color, in a lot of cases as non-compliant or belligerent or angry and let's just call security so we don't have to deal with it.
Steven Jackson:
A tenant of mistrust and how trust can affect not only maybe the specific situations that have led to mistrust, but also future interactions, is that when people walk into the doctor's office, in the clinic, or you walk into a patient's hospital room, you're walking into an environment that's filled with a lot of unknowns. You don't know their lived experience, but what's in there is every bad experience they've had with health care, probably some bias, because we all have them, and a host of other things that we can't characterize. But now it's going to affect the patient and clinician relationship. I just want people to hear that clearly, that having the 26 letters of the alphabet behind your name don't automatically equate to people just trusting you. Being nice and having a big smile doesn't always equate to people simply just trusting you. We have to work to build trust.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Yeah, and once it's established, it's easy to break. But when you've been a good steward of that trust, it goes a long way. I have a couple of patients from Detroit that have found me here in the Twin Cities area. "Dr. Robinson, they said that I have to do this. Is this fine?" I'm like, "Yes, it's OK." Someone of the front desk [staff], "Why are they calling here for you?" I say, "You have to understand, they trust me and that trust is hard to find and they don't take it lightly and I don't take it lightly." I can take the two seconds to say, "How are you? How's your baby? How's your family? Glad you're doing great. I think you should listen to your providers there. They're going to take really good care of you." "Well, they're not you." "Nope, they're not you. It's not me. I can't fly down there and deliver your baby. But I appreciate the offer, but you have to trust them that they're going to take great care of you."
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Sometimes it takes a little time. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer. We just said how tired we are and sometimes you just don't have the bandwidth for it, but maybe that extra five minutes might make an incredible world of difference for a lot of people. I sometimes have to be very intentional about that when I am tired. If I'm at the end of a 24 hour shift, I'm like, "I can't do it again." Can you come to talk to this patient in this room? OK, what's going on? What can I answer for you? You got to get yourself there, but yeah, it's a lot.
Kari Haley:
We alluded to some of the disparities in terms of maternal mortality and even infant outcomes with the African American or Black communities. Can you tell me, I'd like to hear with your experiences, has there been any success stories? I would like something positive in my life. Success stories that you've had with building that trust, with improving an outcome, or changing an outcome that may have gone another way.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
What a great question.
Steven Jackson:
That's a great question.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
I think that the fact that we're having this conversation and this isn't the first time this conversation has been had is a success story in itself. I think that we have lived for a long time in denial that there was a problem, denial that there were disparities of care, denial that babies of women of color were dying at an alarming rate than are non-women of color, non-babies of color. That in itself, the fact that we're just very openly having this conversation, I think is incredible because I don't think it could have been five years ago. I don't think it could have been even maybe three years ago. That is a success most definitely.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Just hearing from patients that are like, "This experience was better than last time." When I hear like, "I felt cared for, I felt heard, I felt safe," that is the truest testament of the work that we do. We had a patient, it was during COVID, she said, "I passed four hospitals to get here because I felt safe here." We're like, "We can transfer you closer to your home." No, I feel safe here. I feel like I'm being heard, I feel me and my baby are in the right place. That to me, I'm like, "We're doing what we're supposed to be doing," and it feels hard because it feels like all we hear is the bad. But those moments, it gets you through the challenging times. I think that's success.
Kari Haley:
No, I love it. Yeah, that's definitely a success and a good story to lean into.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Yeah, we need good stories.
Kari Haley:
We need them.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Just [inaudible 00:24:45].
Steven Jackson:
It's good stories that sustain us when a lot of what we hear, or at least what seems to be loudest, are things like people are passing or experience scores, those kinds of things. Which I mean, are very important, but it's important to highlight some of the wins. I have a personal story. I'm not a mom by the way out there. I'll preface it by saying that I don't know for sure if it was because my wife is Black, but when she was pregnant with our twins, she had, I don't know if it's called false labor, that might not even be correct anymore.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
We will accept that term.
Steven Jackson:
Thank you, thank you. "False labor for $200, Bob." No. We got to the exam area or whatever it was, at a pretty prominent institution, it'll remain nameless. And something as simple as the resident coming, which was OK, this was a resident that we had seen before. But there was a medical student with the resident who was gloving up, getting ready to examine my wife. There was no introduction, there was no this is so and so who's with me, they are training, is it OK if? It was just this expected thing, this person who you don't know, have never met, obviously doesn't have the experience because they're a student, which is fine, we all have to learn. But there was no acknowledgement of that.
Steven Jackson:
My wife said, "Hold on," she put up the church finger like, "Hold on. Who is that and what do they think they're about to do?" It was discomfort that you talked about and it was like, "No, live in this discomfort for a minute," and it was awkward for them, it wasn't awkward for her. I just put my head in my hands like, "Oh boy, here we go," and the medical student ended up not doing the exam. But I feel like that's just an example of the potential and I'll just call it what it is, that's disrespectful. There needs to be acknowledgement of what's going on, who you are at all times, especially in the context of trust and mistrust. I already might have some issues with health care and that didn't help.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Right, you're getting into historical trauma, consent, all of those things that just erode trust. I'm sorry that happened to your wife. I'm very happy she spoke up and she used her church finger, which is a powerful finger.
Steven Jackson:
Yes, it is.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
It's very powerful. I think of that and I think of how many times if that behavior is done it's like, "Well, somebody has allowed that somewhere along the way that the student saw that this was normal behavior."
Steven Jackson:
This was OK.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
This has been taught and then it's been perpetuated. I mean, that's just a tragedy. That's terrible, but I'm glad that she was able to speak up. I always seek to understand, I get our residents and I'm like, "Well, why did they not want to do that? Don't just say, 'She didn't want to do this.' Why? Did you ask her why?"
Steven Jackson:
Oh, she's not compliant, she got attitude.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
She's acting crazy. I'm like, "No, no."
Steven Jackson:
Don't do that.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Why did that? Did you know that her mother died here and she's terrified, and this is triggering for her?
Steven Jackson:
See, curiosity [crosstalk 00:28:22] would open that door.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
All of those things, just seek to understand. Sometimes you won't get an understanding and at least you sought it out and it was a fruitless journey, but at least you tried.
Kari Haley:
I remember as residents, we were all residents at one time, we were worked a lot.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Yes, you are.
Kari Haley:
You are tired all the time. Your ability to be empathetic can sometimes be significantly diminished.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Absolutely.
Kari Haley:
But I think that one of the big things, and I hear you say this too, is just listening to your patients and believing your patients. I know as my story, I remember I was a second year resident. I went in because I thought I may be in labor. It was before I was supposed to be working my evening emergency medicine shift and I just wanted to know like, "Do I need to call in?" The number of eye rolls I got from the resident, from a co-resident who's a year younger than me. The eye rolls of why are you here? And that intense feeling of why are you here? No one asked, no one asked me what I was thinking, what was in the future. Just to think about that, we're treating our co-physicians, our colleagues this way. How are we treating people who don't have a voice to say anything?
Steven Jackson:
That's right.
Kari Haley:
That just really sits with me a lot of the time. It makes me think and double back on how am reframing myself when I feel like ooh, I'm getting to that point where I'm getting a little edgy, I'm getting a little agitated myself, to be able to take that step back.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Right and a lot of times I will call it out with patients if there seems to be a challenging interaction. I'm like, "I'm sure a lot of things happened before you got here. I'm sure a lot of things happened to you in health care settings. I can only imagine what you have gone through and I'm sorry for that. But where we are right now, and here we are right now is that I'm here to hear you, I want to listen, I want to take care of you." A lot of times just the acknowledgement, but I understand why. Are you safe? When I see a lot of people, when they keep coming in for things that I think of why? Are you safe? Do you have food? Is somebody hurting you at home and this is the only place that you have to go? You always have to seek that.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Unfortunately, where we're at in society, these are questions that we have to ask because there might not be anywhere else for a lot of people to go. We know that things escalates in pregnancy, we know domestic violence escalates. We know it's a high chance of relapse with substance use disorder. There's so many things that I think keeping an eye out and as a resident, you're laser focused in like, "I have to make sure I don't miss pre-eclampsia or a heart attack, or something." Know that this is a full person that has a full life that is way beyond what you're seeing right now.
Steven Jackson:
Well, bringing it full circle, we've talked about a lot of elements of trust and we talked about the importance of Black paternal health, in particular and why we need to consider what are some of the things that can affect the dynamic within that room, within that clinic office? What do you say to our listening audience that's still not convinced maybe that this is an important topic, these are important considerations? What is your closing message for them?
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
I think that if people are data-driven, if you go to the CDC and you look up the data and you see the trend over years, it is undeniable. I think that if you have a friend or a relative or someone that you know, that is a Black woman or a woman of color ask them, "What was your last experience like in a health care setting?" Or if they're a mother or a person that has been pregnant, tell me about your pregnancy journey and your story. And you don't have to look far, you don't have to seek wide to hear tremendous things that are usually not great. You will hear near death experiences, you will be absolutely terrified to ever have a baby. These are things that are happening in 2022, 2021, 2020, pre-pandemic. It's happening all the time. And so the naysayers, you don't have to look far to find that.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
When I'm talking to patients, when they ask me the question, "Please don't let me die. What can I do to not die?" I'm like, "These are the things that you can do. I want you to advocate for yourself, I want you to ask questions. You will not leave this visit without having all of your questions and concerns answered. You understand if something happens to you in the hospital, you don't feel that you're getting the best care. These are the levels of escalation. These are who you ask for. These are the questions that you ask." I always like to educate and empower patients because I'm not going to be able to be there. Who can I call? Who can be my advocate when I don't have one?
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
There's a great support for doulas in the labor and delivery during prenatal visits, in the postpartum period to echo your voice, to be there, to be another set of eyes and ears. You have an ally there, they're there for you. There's lots of data to support great outcomes in patients that have doulas. These are things that I go through and I think that we can continue to be robust. I think us as an institution, we're doing a lots of problem identifying and problem solving, and we always have a long way to go. Part of the solution is this conversation that we're having right here and right now.
Kari Haley:
Well, thank you. I mean, we'll sit and we'll digest once again. But thank you so much for being on the podcast. [crosstalk 00:34:16] This was amazing. This was very great. You-
Steven Jackson:
Amazing.
Kari Haley:
I love the stories, I love the recommendations and I just love the humanity that you brought and that you obviously bring to your practice.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
I try my best, I try my best.
Steven Jackson:
Honestly, you have equipped us and our listeners with tools to take into the hospital and into the clinic as clinicians, and then as patients and family members that are listening to this. Understand that we care for you and we are willing to build that trust that's so necessary to make sure that you get the outcomes that we all want and need. Thank you so much and we are humbled by what you're doing just taking the time.
Corinne Brown-Robinson:
Thank you so much for having me. This was fun.
Steven Jackson:
Off the Charts is a production of HealthPartners and Park Nicollet.
Kari Haley:
It is recorded by Jimmy Bellamy with creative by Peggy Arnson, Tina Long, Tim Myers and Jeff Jondahl.
Steven Jackson:
Production services provided by Matriarch Digital Media.
Kari Haley:
Our theme music is by Ryan Ike.