Podcast

Dr. Dominque Woods, Coping with chronic illnesses

Dr. Dominique Woods is a physician executive and health equity leader. She is a dedicated champion of limb preservation and amputation prevention, and her work brings together medicine, public health, and technology. This week I sit down with Dr. Dominique Woods, a surgeon-trained physician who turned toward advocacy and built a life she never saw coming.We talk about leaving the traditional path in medicine and finding purpose in public health. We talk about her work in AI, and how technology can reach patients the system too often leaves behind. And she opens up about something deeply personal: living and leading with a chronic illness. How do you take care of everyone else while learning to take care of yourself? And how do you redefine success on your own terms?

A USC Trustee Scholar, Dr. Woods earned her medical degree from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA through the Charles R. Drew University/UCLA Medical Education Program. She also holds an MPH in Community Health Education. She trained as a categorical general surgery resident at the University of Arizona and studied health analytics at Northwestern University and healthcare systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Woods is Vice Chairwoman, President, and CEO of the Limitless Impact Foundation, the nonprofit corporate foundation of Limitless Group International Corporation. She is also Director of Clinical Research at Limitless Therapeutics. In these roles she leads capacity-building work in corporate social responsibility and helps develop AI-enabled, data-driven healthcare solutions for medically underserved communities, especially patients with disabilities.

Her limb preservation work spans several groups:

The American Limb Preservation Society’s Health Equity Advocacy Committee
The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services Limb Preservation Workgroup
The Rancho Los Amigos Orthotics and Prosthetics Think Tank

She created the ALPS Ambassadors Social Media Workshop. It trains students and early-career health professionals to use digital health communication to advance equity in vascular health, diabetes, and preventing lower-limb amputation.

Dr. Woods is a committed advocate for representation in medicine. She chairs the Charles R. Drew University Alumni Leadership Council. She also serves as President-Elect and Charity Benefit Chair of the Association of Black Women Physicians (ABWP). Founded in 1982, ABWP is the longest continuously operating organization dedicated to Black women in medicine, and it supports them through mentorship, networking, and medical student scholarships. Black women make up only 2.8 percent of the physician workforce. Dr. Woods also sits on the community advisory board for the American Cancer Society’s VOICES of Black Women study, the largest population cohort study of Black women’s health ever conducted.

In this episode, Dr. Judith and Dr. Woods discuss:

Why Black women make up only 2.8% of physicians, and what it will take to change that
The Association of Black Women Physicians’ 40+ year legacy of mentorship and community
Coping with Chronic Illnesses and Invisible Illnesses
Racial disparities in diabetes, vascular disease, and lower-limb amputation
Limb preservation as a health equity issue
How AI and digital health can reach underserved patients, including people with disabilities
Using social media to train the next generation of health equity advocates
Why representation in medicine saves lives
How to cope with High Functioning Depression as a Physician

Connect with Dr. Dominique Woods:

Dr. Dominque Woods on Instagram
Dr. Dominque Woods on LinkedIn
Association of Black Women Physicians Instagram

Association of Black Women Physicians Website

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