“Being healthy is more than not being sick. It’s functioning at your best physically, mentally, emotionally, socially and spiritually.” - Dr. Donna Hamilton

It was almost like an out-of-body experience. Dr. Donna Hamilton was in a meeting. It had gotten too hard to do what she studied and trained so hard for: provide excellent care to her patients. The amount of time she had with them was shrinking. She and her colleagues were having to discuss what they would stop doing with less time for appointments. Health care was changing and not for the better, and she refused to change just so she could keep practicing pediatrics. She had heard her mom, a teacher, share stories about colleagues who seemed to be struggling with burnout, and she had promised herself a long time ago, she would never be a burnt-out anything. Plus, being a burnt-out pediatrician just seemed especially sad. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but she had hope that there was something better. And there was. While figuring out what was next after hanging up her stethoscope, she focused on her own self care, wellness and well being, and that provided her path forward. Today, as the Chief Wellness Officer of Manifest Excellence®, LLC and known to her clients as Dr. Donna®️, she helps them understand the importance of well being, develop practices to grow and sustain it and have hope for a better future.

Teaching Comes Naturally

Teaching comes naturally to Dr. Donna®️. She remembers helping a young neighbor boy improve his reading skills. It was the perfect role for her, because she liked to read and help others. She also remembers the positive responses she got from people when she told them she wanted to be a doctor when she grew up. Being a pediatrician is as much about being a teacher as it is a doctor. It came as no surprise when a friend shared that the Latin root for “doctor” is “teacher.” Her favorite thing about practicing pediatrics was well-child visits and the teaching that happened during them. Teaching adults, especially those who've survived childhood trauma, how to be healthy and experience more well being is what she loves about her work today.

Dr. Donna®️ is a baby of the Civil Rights era and it was the backdrop of her childhood. As an adolescent she saw her mother and stepfather remain active in social action work. She was part of the generation that grew up knowing “what the assignment was.” She attended the University of Virginia as an undergraduate. She didn’t realize it at the time, but entering her freshman year, it had been less than ten years since the first class with women and Black students graduated. It was a time when overt acts of racism were becoming socially unacceptable, but Dr. Donna®️ and her Black classmates knew that they were not wanted on campus by everyone. But she says “they knew what they were there to do, handled their business, and they did it.”

In medical school, at what is now known as Sidney Kimmel Medical College, at Thomas Jefferson University, Dr. Donna®️ remembers dealing with the stereotypically intense, stressful and toxic medical training culture. There were no limits on student working hours, or discussions about how to take care of yourself other than making sure students knew there was a gym on campus for their use. Being a part of a tight knit community of Black medical students that supported and cared for one another provided what she needed to get through the rigors of medical school.

During her fourth year, Dr. Donna®️ did an adolescent medicine rotation at the University of California San Francisco. The attending physician, Dr. Barbara Staggers, a national leader in adolescent health and school- based medical clinics, invited her to stay with her during the rotation and introduced her to transcendental meditation. Dr. Staggers and her brother, a psychiatrist, were seasoned practitioners of it and spoke highly of its benefits. When Dr. Donna®️ began her residency at the University of Minnesota, a friend and fellow resident who also was a long time practitioner of transcendental meditation, helped her officially learn and begin practicing it as a means of self care.

Whole Child Approach

As a pediatrician, Dr. Donna®️ takes a whole child approach meaning a child’s health is more than just their physical health. It is important to take into account their emotional, mental, social and spiritual health. They can be physically healthy but if, for example, they are doing harm to themselves or others, they aren't truly healthy. During her years of practice, she realized how safe a child feels in their home, school, and or community impacts their health and well being. She also saw how adults like teachers, neighbors and extended family members can impact a child’s health and well being positively or negatively. When the Adverse Childhood Experience study was published in the late 1990’s, Dr. Donna®️ said she found hope in it, because it confirmed what she knew in her gut to be true about how adversity negatively impacts children. 

Dr. Donna®️ put her skills as a pediatrician and teacher to good use while working in school-based medical clinics in New Jersey when they were still quite new and being met with resistance. She loved caring for teens and educating them about how to be healthy. She also remembers giving speeches to parents, caregivers, teachers, school personnel, and PTA members about why teens need doctors, that their youth doesn’t guarantee good health and that they need dedicated resources to support their health and well being. 

The Transition Wasn’t Easy

At the time she left practicing medicine, Dr. Donna®️ was part of a growing exodus of primary care physicians from health care. The transition wasn’t easy. She still had a lot of medical school debt and didn’t know what she was going to do. As she thought about what was next, she focused on taking care of herself by following her interests, which helped her figure out what worked for her. Prayer was also very helpful. She started feeling better. People were judgmental about her walking away from a successful career. But as her health and well being improved, she got less judgment and more questions about what she was doing. She started getting calls from other physicians who were struggling as she once had. As more people contacted her, she began charging a fee for her time, so they could pick her brain. This was the start of her shifting into a career as an entrepreneur and non-clinical physician. 

Manifest Excellence® became her professional home when she asked her husband a simple question. He started it to provide Chief Information Officer services to small and midsize companies that didn’t have one on staff. Working with clients, he carefully analyzed the internal systems required to operate a successful business to make sure they were healthy and working properly. One day, Dr. Donna®️ asked him, “What if it’s the people that aren’t healthy and working properly?” She became responsible for assessing and addressing the health and wellness of the people responsible for the systems. Eventually, her husband left the company to become the Chief Information Officer of another company, and the health and wellness of people became the focus of Manifest Excellence®, LLC 

It’s Transformational

Dr. Donna®️ is especially committed to supporting adult survivors of childhood trauma. The work is personal to her because of her own experience as a survivor of child abuse. She has invested time and energy to learn the biology and psychology of trauma, because she has a sense of responsibility and commitment to do this work well. As she has become trauma informed, she now presumes someone experienced trauma until she knows otherwise. She also understands that wellness can’t be done “to” someone, because they might think it is more  performative than helpful or find it so unsettling as to feel unsafe. As she explained, “You can’t tell someone to ‘just calm down’ when they are already in red alert.” To ensure that she is at her best, she follows a regimen of self care that is sacred to her. She also takes pride in knowing the work she is doing to help adults function at their best makes a positive impact on the health and well being of children.

Hope is essential to our well being, but it can be elusive for individuals who have experienced trauma. People need to be ready, willing and able to be hopeful, and while she can help her clients be ready and able, it is up to them to be willing. If they are unable to embrace hope, then helping them imagine it is possible is a step toward healing. But the best is when someone embraces well being and is willing to hope. It’s transformational!

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