Something to Prove

Publisher's Summary. From the Operating Room to the family dinner table, "Something to Prove" chronicles Dr. Thornton’s journey to achieve the goals her father laid out for her in childhood—and to set the bar high for her own children. In "Something to Prove", Dr. Thornton brings us along her continued path as a doctor, wife and mother, revealing the challenges of balancing a flourishing medical career with managing a home and raising children. Carrying on the family name, Dr. Thornton picks up the mantle of her father’s ambition and heart as she shares the ups and downs of her career as the first African-American woman in the United States to be Board-certified in maternal-fetal medicine—while attending her kids’ chess matches, crafting Halloween costumes, and somehow finding time to learn how to tango. Filled with vivid personalities, heartbreaking setbacks, and joyful triumphs, "Something to Prove" is a testament to what can be accomplished through hard work, love, and determination.

Review. Dr. Yvonne S. Thornton’s father had a dream: that his five daughters would become doctors. Overcoming poverty, prejudice (racial and gender), and other hardships, three of his daughters did just that. As Thorton notes:

Mommy and Daddy knew better than anyone that being black and being female besides; their children were born with a double handicap. If we girls were going to get any breaks . . . it would be breaks we made for ourselves. We had to pull so far ahead that nothing and no one could hold us back.

The Ditchdigger’s Daughters by Yvonne S. Thornton, M.D. chronicled this remarkable only in America story.

In Something to Prove, the follow-up, Thornton is living her father’s dream as a practicing high risk O.B. in Manhattan during the early eighties. The dream, however, is not happily ever after as Thornton faces prejudice in her career. On a particularly trying day, Thornton shares her challenges with her indefatigable father. He replies, “Cookie, they opened the door a crack. Now you have to prove to them who you are.”

Proving who she is, Thornton continues to rise above the obstacles and thrive. She also keeps her father’s dream alive, in the next generation, her two children, who also embark on medical careers. To think that this multi-generational success story started with one man’s dream and tenacity. Amazing!

Something to Prove and the Ditchdigger’s Daughters are truly inspirational stories!



Publisher: Kaplan Publishing (December 14, 2010), 288 pages.
Review copy provided courtesy of the publicist.