10 Cone Health Philanthropy Q&A When you and your husband came to Greensboro in the mid-1980s, you set out to care for patients who were falling outside private practice — those facing limited access, financial barriers and complex pregnancies. Your work made a decades-long impact on the health of countless women in our region. What are you most proud of from those early years? Haygood: My husband and I came here to do basically what Dr. [Tanya] Pratt and her associates now do at Cone Health — to be physicians for the population of patients who were not being seen by private practices. We did that for two years, and the number of patients in that category increased, but the hospital administration declined to increase staffing. We decided to leave that employment and start our own practice, Central Carolina OB/GYN. The practice grew rapidly and innovated. We were the first private practice to offer nurse-midwifery care. Now, more than half of the babies delivered in health systems are delivered by nurse-midwives. We feel very excited about having left that as a legacy. Early in your training, you saw how uneven opportunity was for women in medicine. What stood out to you — and how did that shape the physician you became? Haygood: It was clear to me very early on that opportunities and expectations for women — and the goals that women made for themselves — were very different from males’. As early as my high school years, I began to see fewer and fewer women in my science or math classes. Once I went to college, there were more males in the classes I took to prepare for medical school. When I was in medical school, there were fewer women than men. I actually had one of my clinical professors who had two women in his eight-student section say, “Both of you have done really well, but you understand that both of you can’t get honors in this class, right? I wouldn’t be able to explain that to the guys in the class.” Because I experienced that value difference so starkly, I wanted to model the ability to make decisions for myself and to encourage other women to do the same. I wanted to use whatever force I had to move the arc of society and public opinion toward equal access for women and equal resources for women. You spent decades caring for women one patient at a time. What led you to think about impact on a larger scale — and ultimately to make this gift to Cone Health? Haygood: Over my years here in Greensboro, I tried to improve lives through one-to-one care, which is very satisfying. “Personalized quality care” was the tagline for our practice. As my retirement approached, I knew the one-on-one approach could not impact enough lives to make a difference. I needed a bigger target. My mother had such a profound effect on who I was, who I am and who I hope to be that I knew there needed to be a way for her essence to impact the community I’ve loved and lived in for more than 40 years. I knew that much of her life was heavily impacted by her health, by her reproductive health, by the fact that in the society in which she grew up — and in which I grew up — there was a difference in what she could access to enhance her health — to be the best person that she could be — and what other people could access. Some of the same health concerns she had still exist today. As I moved through my career, I became much more aware not only of the disparities between races, cultures and economic classes, but also of disparities between specialties in how they are funded, right down to the amounts physicians are paid to care for various ailments. I understood that the funding and resources available to those who traditionally have had the quietest voices — women and children — were more limited. My mother believed in the worth of every person, and in the importance of hope. I want this gift to capture my mother’s spirit and share it with this community. Pearl lived in a time when many Black women faced barriers to the preventive care and reliable medical support that could safeguard their health. She endured the heartbreak of losing three of her eight pregnancies and never received consistent care for her own health. Despite these challenges, she earned a college degree and built a life defined by determination and resilience. She was trained as a teacher, but after marriage and starting a family, teaching opportunities became less available. She found employment as a domestic worker, then a nurse’s aide, instilling in her children an unshakeable belief in education, dignity and possibility. Her mother’s experiences became the foundation for Dr. Haygood’s career in obstetrics and gynecology, as well as her commitment to advancing maternal care and closing gaps that continue to affect women today. In the conversation that follows, she reflects on the long arc of that commitment — from her earliest days in practice to the system- level change she now hopes to help shape for generations of women to come.
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