Guest Profile
Dr. Marcia Harris
Born in the West Indies, Dr. Harris migrated to the United States at 15 years old after completing High School in Jamaica. She worked for a year as a nanny and then went on to Pace University. Area of concentration in college was speech and drama and languages with the sciences: Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics as easy electives. She ultimately changed her major to Chemistry.
Her experience is myriad, having worked during College and summers at everything from waiting tables to blood drawing tech, from a clothing factory machine operator yes, she made all her own clothing to a store/jet walk model at Abraham and Strauss Department store in Brooklyn, from a cashier at Cinemas I and II theaters in Manhattan to the City of New York Finance Administration as a tax returns auditor.
On graduation she worked in Pharmaceutical Research at Burroughs Welcome in New Jersey and as a licensed Chemistry laboratory Technologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Not satisfied with shaking test tubes, she applied to medical school & subsequently attended Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons on full scholarship. For the first two and a half years of medical school, she continued working at MSKCC so as to have spending money and maintain healthcare and other benefits.
Her mothers death in childbirth when she was 6 years old had a profound effect on her outlook coupled with a lifelong wish for learning and helping people led to her overwhelming commitment to medical practice vowing that she didnt want other boys and girls to lose their mothers in childbirth.
Dr. Harris has devoted innumerable hours to speaking at high schools and other programs, to young people especially, motivating them to find and live their passion. Her mantra is: honest, hard work never killed anyone. Dream big, set goals just do it. Other topics of interest and speaking areas include leadership, empowerment, womens issues and womens health and education.
Focus of her practice changed in 99 when while presenting at a conference in Atlanta, she had a major catastrophic brain attack Blood Pressure 236/144. This led to her changing not only her medical practice but her life. Life is too short for us to live the way we live, she now says and tomorrow is not promised. We can, however, change the paradigm.
She
Stopped eating meat and changed the way she eats,
Started exercising/lifting weights regularly
Lost 60 lbs if I can do it-you can do it-I will show you how
Changed the stress in her life
Incorporated nutrition counseling, wellness and prevention into her practice
Trained in complementary and integrative medicine
New Goal
to get people to be proactive in their health by changing the little things that make a big difference and by not waiting for things to get broken and then try to fix it as we do in the sickness environment medicine and healthcare is practiced in.
