The Playbook Podcast
2nd Shift Playbook aims to create a community for professional women who are all focused on addressing inequality and creating a community for them to thrive in their professional environments.
It’s not just women’s empowerment. We are focused on women who are in high stress, high performance roles and working to navigate work-life balance.
The Playbook Podcast
Pamela Price on Empowering Women Leaders, Tackling Public Health, and Championing Climate Action
Unlock the secrets to thriving as a professional woman and gain invaluable insights into public health challenges, including the fight against Alzheimer's, as we converse with the remarkable Pamela Price of Balm Gilead. Fusing her expertise with our mission to uplift women balancing career and family, this episode promises to arm you with strategies and wisdom for navigating complex healthcare systems and workplace dynamics.
Navigating the workplace as a woman, especially a woman of color, presents unique challenges; ones that Pamela Price knows all too well. Join us as she shares her experiences and successes in leadership roles, reflecting on the importance of diversity, networking, and the complex dance of balancing a demanding career with family life. This candid discussion also tackles federal policy impacts and highlights the need for systemic change to support working women, emphasizing self-care and the power of collective advocacy.
Finally, we broaden our lens to capture the global narrative of climate change, underscoring our interconnectedness and the need for collective action. Pamela encourages us to grasp the gravity of climate issues and inspires both young and older generations to pursue sustainability. This episode is an enlightening journey through professional life, advocacy, and the call for a more equitable, health-conscious future.
Welcome to Second Shift Playbook, the essential podcast for women navigating the dual demands of professional careers and home responsibilities.
Allison Mathews:This show is dedicated to the millions of women who've had to make the tough choice between their careers and caring for their families, and to those who strive daily to balance both In a world where women, especially women of color, in high stress fields like the medical sector and academia, face the daunting challenge of the Second Shift at home.
Charlene Green:we're here to offer support, guidance and empowerment.
Allison Mathews:Our mission is to shine a light on the stories of resilience and determination, to discuss the policies and changes needed to support women fully and to explore how we can all contribute to a more equitable society. Each episode features conversations with trailblazing women like Tia Williams, the bestselling author and beauty editor at Tom Ford, lily Pantisarpe, an innovative account executive at Disney.
Charlene Green:Pamela Price, a dedicated deputy director of Balm Gilead Incorporated, and Michelle Geathers, the visionary chief diversity officer and head of corporate responsibility at Visa.
Allison Mathews:These remarkable women share their journeys, the obstacles they've overcome and their strategies for managing the complex interplay of work and home life.
Charlene Green:Second Shift Playbook isn't just a podcast.
Allison Mathews:It's a movement towards creating a world where women don't have to choose between their careers and their families.
Charlene Green:As a retired anesthesiologist who has dedicated my career to serving the people of North Carolina through health equity and policy change, I am now committed to advocating for women's empowerment and policies that uplift us all.
Allison Mathews:As a PhD in sociology, public health researcher and entrepreneur, I have a deep understanding of stigma and discrimination, emotional intelligence, social psychology and stress management. I've dedicated my career to advocating for marginalized communities to access resources and am now committed to advocating for women to become financially independent and fully empowered to navigate life's challenges. Join us as we delve into the realities, the struggles and the victories of working women everywhere. Together, we can redefine what it means to work and live in harmony, supporting one another through the challenges of the Second Shift. Welcome to Second Shift Playbook. Welcome to Second Shift Playbook podcast.
Allison Mathews:I'm Dr Allison Matthews and I'm here with my friend and business partner, dr Charlene Green. Say hello everybody, hello, yes, hello. So we are today going to be interviewing an amazing woman, pamela Price, who is the deputy director of Balm and Gilead. As deputy director of Balm and Gilead, pamela works collaboratively with the CEO and founder, Pernissa Seal, to develop, coordinate and implement all administrative and program strategies for the organization, which aims to improve the health and well-being of African Americans. She has more than 20 years of experience in public health, epidemiology and healthcare. She also serves as a director of the National Brain Health Center for African Americans, a project that addresses the impact of Alzheimer's disease and dementia on this population, and we are just so excited to have her today on this podcast. Welcome.
Pamela Price:Hi, Thank you guys so much for having me. I hear that, or even when I read that, and I'm still just like oh, that sounds like a lot.
Allison Mathews:Yeah, you are an accomplished woman.
Pamela Price:I'm getting there, I'm getting there, awesome.
Allison Mathews:So just to explain some of the format of the podcast, we like to start by having a little bit of conversation about what's happening in the news and then we'll move into just kind of trying to understand more about your experience as a professional woman, some of your challenges and some of your advice for the women who are listening in on our podcast.
Pamela Price:Love it.
Charlene Green:Awesome. So the two amazing things that we can talk about just briefly today is the number one thing that is trending everywhere is this Boeing 737 MAX non-planes, where there was a plane that took off in Portland, oregon, and had to do an emergency landing, and it looks as if downtown downtownspeakingcouk a part of the plane that was initially meant for an exit door that they had actually patched up, actually, at about more than 10,000 feet, blew off. Fortunately, everybody had still had their seat belts on and no one was hurt or injured particularly, however, but if it had reached the altitude of just normal 30,000 feet, there would have been children, people walking around and they would have been sucked out of the plane. So it could have been horrific tragedy, and so that's the news of the day. But the major news is that United Airlines actually found some loose bolts and they're gonna explore that more. So it looks as if there may be more planes being grounded.
Charlene Green:But I think the most important part of the news is federal agencies and our federal government have put in place policies that put safety first for the American citizens, so this is one of those times. I think that is major news, because we need to tell Americans that the federal government does do things to protect us in policies, so from manufacturing institutions and companies, where they have to follow rules to protect people. So I think that's very important. I think there's a lot of discussions about why do we need a federal government and things like that. This is exactly the reason why we need it, and so apparently there's a major meeting today, on Tuesday the 9th of January, where the executives of Boeing are meeting in Winton Washington, their headquarters where they make these planes, and they're all hands on deck. Every safety person in the world probably is coming there to talk to see how we can stay safe and follow the regulations of the federal government to make sure this never happens again.
Charlene Green:And the second part of the news which may involve your amazing work is the new Alzheimer's drug, lekembi, that is on the market now and I think the FDA just approved it. And interestingly, I would love for you to weigh in on this a little bit as some news, it's accelerated pathway program where there has been FDA uses this for some drugs where there is an unmet significant need that needs to be addressed. I think some of the trials a long time ago was initially with 795 patients, 800 in some patients and the phase three trial was 795 patients and just wanted to. That's big news for the FDA to have that accelerated approval, because they normally don't do it for many drugs. However, I would love for you to weigh in on that a little bit as the news of the day.
Pamela Price:Yes, no, 100%, and definitely with just to the first kind of news highlight news story with. As much as I traveled, that was when you hear stuff like that you just immediately first I just thank God, like, okay, thank God that every plane I have been on has taken off and landed safely. But I do agree that it gives us an example of how our government should work. I know we tend to think that it doesn't, and even in the space of the new Alzheimer's medication, the new drug, LeCambi, that was recently approved and authorized, there were actually I was fortunate enough to be a part of a lot of conversations before we got to this approval. We wrote letters, we participated in sessions, we actually did public comments during the public comments period, not just only about the benefits of having these types of accelerated programs that allow us to really use the evidence, follow the science and if we can get drugs that are gonna impact or potentially impact communities that are already disproportionately affected by certain diseases and conditions, that we shouldn't penalize those drugs if those drugs have high price points or the population in which they serve is gonna be a larger population, for example, our Medicaid population. So we were really happy to see that that moved along. The FDA moved along with their approval, cms looks like they're coming and it's gonna be something that they will also not require some additional things, such as randomized clinical trials, which just for the audience those randomized clinical trials, which is the typical path to getting medications approved and on drug formularies and getting them to where your doctor can prescribe them.
Pamela Price:They disproportionately disadvantage black and brown communities. When we think about Alzheimer's disease itself from a prevalence perspective, you're gonna see more whites and Caucasians diagnosed. However, the risk and the burden of the disease is actually greater in black and Hispanic communities. Blacks were about two times more likely to develop Alzheimer's and Hispanics are about one and a half times more likely. And so having access to therapeutics like Leukembi, that is, if we can get diagnosis earlier to these communities now we're talking about a drug that is going to not just slow a progression of a disease that is devastating to families.
Pamela Price:I have experienced it myself personally with my grandfather who passed away from Alzheimer's. So knowing now that we've got a therapeutic that can really enhance the quality of life or persons diagnosed with Alzheimer's, it is a huge win. In this space, we still have a lot of work to do to shore up the gaps in terms of cost. So we need to make sure that, now that this is approved, that we don't price it at a place where these communities who really really need it can't access it. We also, again we've got to make sure that we are working more closely with healthcare providers and neurologists and specialists, that we're working with health insurers, that they can shorten up that window to when my provider is recommending this for me and I don't have to jump through 10 different hurdles to get the actual prescription. So we've still got some work to do, but this was just amazing news for us to have in this space, and one that, both personally and professionally, I was really really, really happy to be a part of and see the results.
Charlene Green:And we would love to talk to you more about some of the content that we're gonna maybe put on our website about this particular new amazing drug. But one of the questions that maybe we can talk about briefly is addressing some of the concerns and raise awareness about the new treatment, about the drug. If you can comment just particularly on, there are some side effects with the drugs that maybe affect all patients, and I'm an anesthesiologist so I've seen some of the elderly patients and not all the Alzheimer's patients the elderly, of course but some of the side effects are dizziness, some of them are confusion, some of them are visual disturbances. At older ages people do fall. So I'm hoping that when you go back to the drawing board and the table with some of these amazing FDA administrators that maybe you can talk about maybe recording those symmetric data, particularly to make sure that even given awareness to people that with this drug you could fall or things like that, because the increase in morbidity and mortality would fall.
Charlene Green:It's significant in the elderly. But I also wanted you to comment on maybe some of the amazing things that you will help out with. The drug apparently costs about $27,000 or $26,000. And so Medicare only pays for 80% of it. So there's a significant cost of $6,000 to $10,000 that some of our vulnerable population, or maybe people who are working, can't afford. So if we can help advocate that with you to get that worked on, that would be amazing.
Pamela Price:Absolutely. First of it's a yes to any of that and because I'm just a real big proponent that the more information that we have, then now we can make the best decisions. We make poor decisions if we have poor data and if we have poor information. So I 100% support that and you're right. I think, sadly, with it seems like almost with every drug that we have, there's always some side effect, and you're weighing out my side effects, what your outcomes are gonna be, and all of those are really important. Another one, specifically for, let's say, communities like the African-American community, where we have high risk of vascular type diseases, so high blood pressure, high cholesterol and those types of things. The trials did show that there were also the potential for things called brain bleeds, or they call them R-A-R-I-A, and that got a lot of attention as we were working our way to this approval. And so what helps that now is making sure we're educating the patients, we're weighing and having providers and clinicians work with the patients who they feel are eligible for this drug then to weigh those risk benefits and then to make sure that we are following up. I think with every drug, especially one is expensive. In this it's also done in a clinical setting, so this is not something they're gonna send you home with and have you take it. You're gonna be monitored throughout, and I think we need to make sure that families and patients know that that you're monitored throughout, and anytime there's a change or something that looks like we're seeing an increase in falls or we're seeing the potential to have some of those brain bleeds, then now we know we can shift and make adjustments, and that's the beauty I want people to, especially minority communities.
Pamela Price:I know we have every reason to distrust and mistrust New meds, old meds, our healthcare system.
Pamela Price:I understand that. I've lived it as both a patient as a person who's a part of the system, and I think what's important, though, is that we cannot afford to disengage completely, so we have to make sure that we are approaching our healthcare system as a relational type of manner, so it's not just transactional yes, you gotta pay your copays, and we are advocating strongly that the drug makers of these new therapies that they offer patient assistance programs for those communities who will have some income issues, similar to how they've done with cancer drugs, similar to how they still continue to do with new HIV therapies, but as we are also trying to shore up some of those gaps. We have to make sure that we're breaking down some of those barriers and silos, with just us talking to our clinicians. Ask if you have a provider and you know this new therapy is out there and they haven't even mentioned it to you. You mention it, got it down, make a note, say hey, doc, I heard about this new drug and I wanna know am I eligible?
Pamela Price:You make them tell you and prove to you you're not eligible for a therapy that potentially could be beneficial to you.
Charlene Green:And I think we have to go into this healthcare system being our own advocates until the system can be more responsive to what we need and I was gonna say we're assuming that the market for Alzheimer is the amyloid plaques and that needs to consistently be verified too with the researchers. But lastly, when you talk about the coordination of clinicians, that's what I did for 29 years and my advocacy is that, with the bottom hair administration having negotiating drug costs, hopefully in the next year or so, particularly for the blood thinners, you're gonna have to have coordination with the cardiologists to ensure that the patients that are on blood thinners are applicable and are monitored for these types of things. So that would be my advocacy and I would love, with our Second Shift Playbook, to help with some of that content, to help you with that and spread that awareness and all that. So that would be amazing.
Pamela Price:Yeah, because providers one of the things I love when we first started the Brain Health Center, we sectioned off it into kind of two primary audience who are we trying to speak to? So we knew we wanted to speak to the African-American community. We wanted to speak to them through the churches, where we know they listened and they're tuned into most of the time, and then we wanted to speak to clinicians and providers and researchers. One of the first things we did in the first two years of launching the center was actually I traipse the country doing trainings, either in the communities with the families and churches and community-based organizations, or I was with a chapter of the National Medical Association or work with the National Black Nurses with their chapters.
Pamela Price:To say, even as a person who has a healthcare round, unless you are specialized in like to your point of, you're not specialized in care, if you're not specialized in dementia or Alzheimer's and you're not talking to the community or Alzheimer's and you're not taught this in school.
Pamela Price:So when patients and families are showing up, we do need to make sure that our clinical environments are culturally proficient, not that they've checked the box, that I know when someone speaks a different language or I know what I shouldn't and should say, but being proficient in knowing how these communities show up in your space what they will say and won't say how to get rid of some of those biases in terms of if there is low adherence or no shows to appointments or a fear of wanting to go with a certain treatment plan, and no one is digging into that. So I think, yet providers need, I think, some additional resources and information, and then I think our healthcare system, especially including our payers, we have to really create a model that allows, if it's not the provider, that is someone in the clinical setting who can take the time to address some of these.
Allison Mathews:What it makes me think about. Like my, I'm a caregiver to my parents. My dad has Parkinson's disease and when he was, I guess maybe we started seeing some signs, maybe about five years ago. But the doctors said, oh, we'll just wait and see. We'll watch and see it progress. It never started again.
Allison Mathews:You know, I'm just thinking about, like this drug, if it potentially had any benefit, it would have benefit early on in, you know, before you even really saw major signs and symptoms of the disease. You know, and it's you can't, even really you can't do an assessment of amyloid plaque buildup, because the only way that you can do that is if someone has died and you can do, you know, a biopsy of their brain. So you know, it's really important for us and for Obama and Gilead to be communicating oftentimes to the women of the family who are the caregivers, who are the ones who are going to take the time to do the research and to push their fathers or their you know, their loved ones to go to the doctor. My dad wouldn't go to the doctor.
Allison Mathews:He didn't think it was a big deal and it was fine, and the sign that we actually picked up on for him was that he started to lose his voice. His voice got really soft and he's a singer and he like loves, I mean he's just a beautiful voice. But he, like we, were like we can't hear you. What is going like? Why can't we hear you? And then, when he started going to speech therapy and then they finally said we think this is a degradation of your vocal cords because of Parkinson's Wow, but you know, if I didn't push my dad to go to the doctor, to go check it out, we would have never even known that he had Parkinson's disease.
Charlene Green:Right, Wow, and I was just going to mention that hopefully more information will come out with the data. I think the data is not quite released to the public yet, but this particular job from what we have read about it only affects mild cognitive dysfunction, not severe disease.
Charlene Green:So, that's going to have to be the narrative as well that everybody isn't applicable for this drug. So we need to make sure that only people that are applicable, particularly if they're going to spend that kind of money for payment and things like that and the evaluation right, Because there are some tools that you're a provider.
Pamela Price:So one of the things that we still have to do some work is making sure that things like a PET scan can get covered by insurers, Because, while, yes, we can't be definitive about the plaques, PET scans do give us at least some indications that we have that that towel that's being built up.
Pamela Price:And then there are a few other biomarkers as well, and then we also now, luckily, have the beauty of some genetic testing.
Pamela Price:So sometimes you can stack a few tests and indicators together to assess a risk and or a trajectory of where a disease, or at least help you start to rule out what it is not, and then, if this is all we have left, then we can move in this direction to say that this is kind of what we're dealing with and for, like caregivers and I'm glad that you brought that up, because we also know that caregivers about two thirds of caregivers, they are now starting to be the you know being diagnosed with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia we have caregivers who report a poor quality of health, because you are being in that role of making sure that everyone else is getting you know to, where they need to get to and all of their appointments.
Pamela Price:And I think, especially just as women, we wear so many of those hats and do so many of those things for other individuals and then sometimes our, as a result of that, our own health can sometimes tend to suffer, and we need to understand that in things such as Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease and there are a few other things, there are genetic markers where we are just going to be genetically predisposed or we're going to have a higher risk of it, and so, even talking with your provider about opportunities to get genetic counseling, both my maternal and paternal grandmothers die from breast cancer. I fought and argued with a lot of people to get the genetic screening to see if I had the gene that was going to increase the likelihood of me having breast cancer, and no one and it wasn't. I couldn't. I was like I'll pay for it out of pocket, you know if my insurance doesn't want to, but I just I struggle to find someone who would even say get order the testing, and it's those types of things that if I think, if more people are showing up informed about what some of these tests are, there are things that can test for genetic kidney disease which is huge in black and
Pamela Price:brown communities and there there are simple blood draws. So there's nothing extremely invasive. We're not talking about having to go get spinal taps and all these other. It's literally let me draw some blood on you, send it out and let's see if you have these markers, because I really feel that the genetic markers can sometime be that thing that really makes us look at some of the modified behaviors that we have controlled over, because now we know, wow, genetically I can't do anything about that, but maybe I really do need to step up on eating better and I need to step up a little bit on on on exercising, all of those things which we know, even with Alzheimer's and brain health. It reduces those risks and we can control those and in most parts it doesn't cost us a whole lot to modify some of those behaviors.
Charlene Green:So in my lived experience we're I'm going to say the second shift playbook is really looking forward to working with you and the bomb and Gilead to promote all that you're saying so that we can get the best narrative and information to our populations that are, so you know, impacted by by Alzheimer's. I want to mention you mentioned the genetic markers. So the is the APOE4, which two to five percent to two to APOE4 is genetic gene. I think it's two gene mutations and two to five percent reportedly of American population has that. But those people who have those markers have an increased risk of brain swelling and brain bleeding. So that's going to be really important for the cardiologists and other people to know and work together collaboratively. But from my experience, we need to work in centers sitting at the table with the FDA if we can make sure that that genetic testing is is affordable. Yes, and, more widely, yeah, many times is not affordable.
Charlene Green:So now you're talking about the PET scans, the genetic testing, which, in addition to the cost of the drug, but, more importantly, maybe, since you're sitting at the table, maybe we can get the, the Medicare, to negotiate the price of the drug, to bring the cost down to, depending on what the R&D of the drug was, if it's you know. So that would be something to, since you're at the table, to be amazing, to advocate for.
Pamela Price:Yes, and policy, like I want to say that before the 118th Congress that we have right now, that has not been very interested in passing a lot of legislation. Prior to that, however, the 117th Congress, that we had actually had two bills that were talking and supporting the improvements and increase in access to genetic counseling. Because, again, it's, it's not just adults, if we think about a lot of the pediatric cancers, if we think about a lot of some of the rare diseases that disproportionately impact men, some disproportionately impact women, some communities of color, those genetic markers are there but, like you said, no one either knows where to access it or I know where to get it, but it's too costly, it's nowhere near. You know, I got to drive two hours to get to the, the closest genetic counselor, excuse me and I was really, really pleased to see those two people and I'm hopeful.
Pamela Price:And I like to tell all my friends policy really is local. If something really, really, really matters to you, do not wait for your local congressman or woman to come to you because they're not. They do not going to see them until it's time you know to for you to go to the, the voting booth, but they have offices. They don't stay in DC year round. They have to come home, find out where their offices are, write a letter, get a petition from your community to say hey, you know, we got 10,000 kids who live in this district who are impacted by some form of rare disease. We need the genetic counseling here because it really. Our federal government is amazing, but the policies that impact us most are going to be dictated by who is locally. Your county, city and state representatives are typically the ones that will drive more policy that's going to impact your day to day, including your pocketbook, when it comes to the things that we pay for within our healthcare system.
Charlene Green:Awesome. But, lastly, please send those those two house or senate policies and bills and we will try to you know. When we develop some content for it, put it on our website. But, thank you, we're going to move on and talk about the amazing things about how does how do they have a work life balance, and and so that you can continue to do all those things that you're doing for the American people.
Allison Mathews:Yeah, so, so yeah. So my question for you as deputy director, someone who runs a national organization, works with FDA and all of those things what are some of the challenges that you face as a professional woman and how have you overcome those challenges?
Pamela Price:One of the the, the big ones that it's it's. It's an issue more I may, maybe, perhaps, than this, just a challenge, and that is too often I am one of too few, or the only one person of colors, especially a woman of color, in a lot of these spaces, and that I think, on the one note, while I'm happy, yes, that I'm at the table and they at least have you know they got enough of you know they got a few of us here that to me means that we don't have the right voices and we don't have the right lens or the right mix of lenses, and it can put pressure sometimes on you professionally because you feel like, okay, I'm coming in here and you know I cannot be the voice for all black people or women, but the folks in the room are looking at you saying, so what do you think black folks would think about this? Right, and so they're. You know it's striking that balance of being transparent and letting them know I don't speak for all black people, we're not monolithic. I strongly encourage you to go find some other black people to invite to this conversation, to the next webinar, to the next panel, to the next, you know, conference or what have you.
Pamela Price:But that has been a challenge, I think, definitely as being in this role as deputy director of the bombing Gilead of having and being in relationship with national and government institutions like the FDA. We've done work with the FCC around broadband and equity. So while we are glad and proud and I myself proud to be in those spaces, I want to each year try and bring more women. I want to see more young women and people, young men, young men, into these spaces and into these conversations. And that's kind of like my goal to say we've got to figure out how to bring it, not just pay it forward, but how to also then say who am I reaching back and whose hands am I holding as I'm coming into this room? That I've got me. I've got my mom, my grandmother, I've got my daughter and their daughters and that's who is in this room with me when I go into these spaces. And that's kind of how I try and combat that challenge of the lack of diversity in some of these spaces.
Allison Mathews:Right, I can imagine you know, because I'm just thinking so if you're the only one woman in the space, which I think we all have, continue to experience. I think that's why it's so important for us to have organizations like you know, bob and Gilead, and like Second Shift Playbook, that have like, even though you're the only woman in the room for that meeting, you know that you're backed by and connected to a whole community of people who can support you and amplify your work and that you have an ear to what they want and what they need. So you don't feel like you're just speaking for all black people without any real kind of credibility behind it.
Pamela Price:Right, and that networking is important, right. So if I'm talking to a partner and they're focusing on menopause and black women, well, there are about three black women led and not included in the bombing ghillie that I personally know who have the reach. They've got a band. So I'm touting and shouting to say, hey, there's this other awesome, amazing organization who you also should know. If this is what you are saying, that your end goal is Like, I'm just, I'm really really, really adamant that we have to make sure that we get rid of the kind of crabs in the barrel. Or I can't talk about my home girl's network or business that she has, because is that gonna take away from me or from my?
Allison Mathews:shine.
Pamela Price:As far as I'm concerned, I think all women period we gonna shine, no matter where we are, no matter what the conversation is. I just really believe in our excellence. Is this species, you know? And I don't think. I think it's important that we do that, because I find too often that you have big national corporations who they've never heard of, some really amazing businesses and amazing nonprofits and amazing or doing awesome work, and you've got some money that you're trying to give away. I know who you can give that to.
Allison Mathews:Well, you can point them in our direction.
Pamela Price:For sure, absolutely absolutely so.
Charlene Green:I think we. You know you said some amazing things and one of the most amazing things that you mentioned was we can all work collaboratively, but policies matter. You know, we have over 300 million people in this country and so all three of us can talk and we can have a discussion and put out a blog, but policies make a difference. Federal policies make a difference, not just one state, but all states. So the genetic marker, you know, funding, the costs, the negotiations, the narratives need to come from the federal government. So that's federal policy. So I think people really do need to understand how we need to work together and push more policies that make a difference so they can be more unanimous.
Charlene Green:My question for you is how do you balance your career and your personal life? You already mentioned you traveled a lot and I just I'm gonna go back to the Boeing plane situation with Alaska Airlines. That plane had taken 150 flights already. It was the hundred reportedly. Reportedly it was the 151st flight that this happened to. So, as a person who travels all the time not to make you more anxious or anything like that, but how do you navigate the anxiety of airplane travel? I think it was 600 or more flights that were canceled last weekend, and so if you were traveling, your whole life was impacted. If you had to travel and get stuck someplace, how do you manage that with your amazing family that you just mentioned?
Pamela Price:It's not easy and I think sometimes we can. We painted that it really is and it's not. I'd be lying if I tell you that it was I. First and foremost, I'm a fervent believer because I've seen and I feel I've just really been blessed and fortunate that God has allowed me to do work that I love and that I'm extremely passionate about, and I'm really big on going where I feel I need to go and I don't go where I think I'm not supposed to go. And so I feel like if I'm supposed to get from here out to LA to go do this symposium or this panel, I say my prayer for I leave the house, my children and then for me the rest of it has to be in God's hand so that I can actually go and do the work that I believe I've been kind of put here to do. So that's the main thing. The other thing is I have a wonderful husband because we've got twins who just turned 10 on Christmas Day on Boine and Curl, and so if you could imagine like I was traveling when they were even younger it's a little easier now because they're 10 is just kind of like you get up, get your breakfast and let's get out the door, go to school, but he has been just a phenomenal support and a champion for me to do the work that he to him. He was like I just know you enjoyed it. I don't really don't know what some of it is, but I really enjoy it and I think that allows me to not have some of the anxiety and to not have some of the stress.
Pamela Price:I know my kids are well taken care of. Their clothes don't match. Today my daughter's hair may be a little bit more fuzzy because he couldn't quite brush it up the right way, but I know that they're being loved on. I know homework's getting done. I know they're being fed while I'm away and that really helps. And I think just having a network of other women right that when I'm like if I really left out of something I'm like I can't believe they just said that like out loud.
Pamela Price:You know, like who can I? You know I've got a few people I can text. You know that I can call real quick. I have an awesome therapist because I live with mental illness. So I have had an amazing therapist now for several years who I can call when I'm really, really feeling like I need to be talked off a ledge, or just making sure that I'm consistent with my appointments and I'm consistent with conversations about medication, or just you know. So, even just making sure that what I need in my toolbox to be fully myself on the road, fully myself when I get back home, fully myself when I'm here at work, when I'm hanging with my girls and I think that's for me, that's what I wanna be able to always be the best version of myself, that, whatever moment I'm being called to, I can do that in. And those are the three things I need probably most, and that's God, my husband and an amazing therapist.
Charlene Green:And I was just gonna mention that some of the things that you mentioned we already have on our blog and on our website the Second Chip Playbook, and one of the things is delegate and conquer. I know one of the things that we try to tell women leaders is it's okay to say no.
Pamela Price:Absolutely. Full sentence, full stop, with no explanation. No, absolutely, I'm good. No, exactly. No, I'm good. Please don't ask me again. I meant what I said the first time.
Charlene Green:I actually there's a Tory store here in our time called Toys Company and my daughter and I went there and they had this button. It was like no and it says no. Different times, different ways, and I use that in my home already.
Allison Mathews:I love how she's navigating her Second Shift right now on this podcast, because that is real. You see me doing that.
Charlene Green:I have a 10 year old daughter and I'm telling her back up.
Pamela Price:That's real and you point, you give a look like uh-uh.
Charlene Green:Yes definitely you give me the look. And the reason why is that today of all days, when I'm having this amazing work day, the Guilford County school system canceled classes today. Yeah, oh yeah, you don't have a babysitter, so I have to work with my daughter here. And so guess what? A lot of the women who had to go in person to work. What do they do? How do they navigate that?
Allison Mathews:Yeah, I have no idea. I don't do like, do they? Just they and they can't work from home, so they have to just leave their kids at home.
Charlene Green:No, they call them sick, they call them sick and they lose money. They're not able to pay some of their bills. And that's where the policies I was just mentioned about how we have to support paid family leave, paid time off and universal childcare and support day cares in centers where children can go, where working women can feel comfortable having a career and not having it to give up their career those things are important.
Pamela Price:Yes and you hit it. It's policy right. Like at the end of last year there was the big meeting at the White House. You had all the people together because they want to do something now about menopause, about women as we age and menopause because we leave in the workforce at unprecedented numbers. For a lot of different reasons. Some of it is because, just of that we don't have the flexibility that when something happens with our child, something happens you know anyone in our home that requires us as the wives, as the care partner or what have you to be there. We don't have a workforce that supports that Same as like we don't have a workforce that really supports women as we age.
Pamela Price:And you're in the middle of this hot flash. What do I really do? Or I know we did a survey with black women experiencing menopause and men. Our lived experience with menopause is very different. We actually are seeing higher rates of some of the mood disorders and mood swings that drastically impact you in the workplace.
Pamela Price:And if we had more policies that champion that. So I don't feel like I'm going to lose my job if I call out again for something. It's the same with folks living with mental illness. We don't have a lot of policies that support someone to say I'm not well today and I need to. You know permission to work from home. We don't have enough employee assistance program that just makes things such as just basic therapy. I tell everybody you don't need to wait for a diagnosis. If you are living this life and life always is lifeing therapy at some point could be a really, really good thing to bounce things off, oh, so that you don't come home and kick the dog and yell at the kid you know and take it out on everyone else that we can.
Charlene Green:therapy allows us to build up some tools for us to be able really just to cope with life, let alone if you got some other issue going on and since we're on this issue, you know I was in that space of COVID where had to be an in-person physician, along with nurses and the staff from the operating room, and many of the people that were affected initially were from the black and brown population and there was significant preventable deaths that occurred and one of which is one of the reasons is because they didn't have the caregiver situations initially, so that provided a lot of stress. Many of the family members got sick because the disease COVID-19 was taken home. So it's really important that we really try to understand policies, and you mentioned that there is a backlog of policies that have not been implemented on this 118th Congress and we need to push Congress to do that or get a new Congress that can do that.
Allison Mathews:You got to elect new people.
Pamela Price:At every level. It's like at your job. I was telling a friend, like, look, everybody has performance evaluation. You have one if somebody, even the people working at McDonald's and Taco Bells they somebody's evaluating their work and if you are not doing well, you're not going to be employed here.
Charlene Green:Period, and you talked about the Alzheimer's drug, lekinbi, which the Q is actually pronounced with the K, so that everybody can understand that. So when you talk about the pros and cons, what is the benefits versus the risk of everything? So I just want people that are listening to this podcast we're not promoting any one candidate or anything like that but look at the pros and cons. If there are 200 bills that are pending that are not being passed, you need to push for a Congress that can push and implement these amazing bills and policies that can help save our lives. The life expectancy for brown and black people have decreased. It takes forever to decrease the life expectancy for people. It happened in three years. So that is a non one one for all of you all on this podcast to listen to and understand. What can we do to stay alive?
Pamela Price:Right and live well. I think we've been in this boat that just as we age, it's just going to fall off the rails, like I'm going to, you know, like we still have people in our communities who just feel, if I live long enough, alzheimer's is just going to be a natural part of me aging and that is so not true. And so, again, like you said, it really is us knowing there are so many levers and systems right, and we say, well, we'll, we'll play over here, maybe in an education, or we might show up when it's something in the health. But we got to understand all of this is a continuum and even if, let's say, you're not a person, you've never been impacted by Alzheimer's or your life has actually gone extremely well, you've lived a golden life right, you still paying taxes, so you are potentially paying higher taxes because people are getting into care later as opposed to earlier.
Pamela Price:People are overburning our healthcare system with diseases and conditions that are preventable. The fact that black people are still dying from HIV in 2024 at higher rates than any other race in this city is ridiculous. But it is costly and the people who need the drugs and they need the therapy and they need all these extra providers and different types of conditions. Someone is paying for it. So you're either paying for it at a higher rate or you can get involved to your point and look at and say what can I support from a policy perspective that's going to help? It's not going to help anybody in my family. It may not help anybody who even look like me. But if you work, if you cash in some check from somewhere and some type of form of taxes is coming out property tax, local state tax, taxes we pay when we I mean we get taxed everywhere, right? So wouldn't it, wouldn't you? I know I would love to see that my taxes are going to something more productive than what I think they go to now.
Charlene Green:Talking about taxes did in North Carolina. It is in North Carolina. There is a proposal for the for the insurance companies to raise homeowners insurance by 40%. What 40%? The Department of Insurance is weighing in on that and talking about it, but there's going to be increase of taxes. Those are the policies that should be in place that you cannot raise taxes 40%. What does that mean? That means that people that are black and brown or people that live in rural communities, or people that are vulnerable or students are not able to it's not.
Allison Mathews:it's not sustainable. Can't afford your house. No, Even if you've already been lucky enough to own a house now, you can't afford to keep it.
Charlene Green:So the interconnectivity that you're talking about is climate change, oh everything.
Pamela Price:I mean like seriously, you know I love, first of all, thank you guys so much, yes, for having me, and I could literally just talk to y'all all day. But it's interconnectivity is what you just said, and it's realizing we do not live in silos. The society that we are, we are part of, it's not silo, Like there. When we say global, it really is global and it's everything things you see, things you don't see. And if we do not figure it out soon, you know I don't see things improving for sure. But yes, it is that interconnectivity. And to stop saying I'm going to put these blinders up and to say, well, that don't, that doesn't impact me or that doesn't affect me, have you living here on this planet today? It does, in some, figure out where you're connected and who you're connected to, and then figure out how you're going to work collectively together to resolve.
Charlene Green:So the young people that are listening and the older people that are listening to this podcast, google the billions of dollars that the federal government has paid out in climate change efforts for emergency money to all the states. Personally, there are many of the southern states that don't that many times don't believe in climate change. You, you, you, you, you, ír, you, you.