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right or wrong in my life to share with people internationally so they can make decisions based on the decisions I’ve made - good, bad or indifferent.” She translated this relatability into her 50 Shades of Pink Foundation, understanding as a physician that communication and having patients retain a positive attitude helps with their response to treatment.
She wanted to go back to medicine after the relationship ended, but her mother told her she’d have to pay for her own schooling. She worked for two years to save up the money before she was able to go back. After Alcorn, she attended the University of Mississippi for medical school. She was inspired to be an OB-GYN, in part to fight against her conservative hometown where sex wasn’t discussed, where vaginas were referred to as “pocketbooks” and menstruation as “that time of the month.”
Walters knew she wanted to help people growing up in Mississippi where she attended Alcorn State University, and had other options for school, but no other choice.
“I just wanted to be able to talk about sex,” said Walters. “So, I knew when I went to medical school, I wanted to be an OB-GYN.”
“I grew up near Alcorn where we bleed purple and gold,” Walters laughs. “All of my family went to Alcorn. They wouldn’t let me entertain anything else. Both of my parents were schoolteachers and really into academics.”
Some of her medical studies took her to Atlanta, and she fell in love with the city. She opened a practice, Comprehensive Women’s OB-GYN, with her partner in Atlanta. There were obstacles along the way. The first year of her practice, she and her partner made financial mistakes, but recovered. She learned not to shop or eat out in the early years. She put positive affirmations on her mirror daily. “Nobody told us how to run a business in medical school, they taught us how to be a doctor,” Walters remembers. “But I was determined to make it work.”
At Alcorn, she was pre-med, but her ambitions were briefly derailed when she fell in love.
“I wanted to marry this guy. I decided I didn’t want to be a doctor anymore. I just wanted to get out of college so I could marry him, so I switched my degree to medical technology,” she recalls. “As soon as I started the medical tech program, he dumped me.”
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