Doctor Delivers New Memoir at Barnes & Noble Event by Linda Telesco Dr. Yvonne Thornton ended her presentation at the Barnes & Noble book signing Wednesday with a surprise. She turned on music and belted out “The Impossible Dream” in honor of her parents, especially her father. A poor ditchdigger in the 1950s, Donald Thornton dreamed of bigger things for his six daughters. Much bigger, and seemingly impossible for black women the time. He insisted that they all become doctors. His daughters protested, “Who ever saw a black doctor, or a woman doctor?” Thornton stood firm. “When someone’s in need of healing, he won’t care about the color of the doctor’s skin,” he said. Remarkably, the sisters overcame the odds, became doctors, and proved their father’s dream to be quite possible, after all. Their story was chronicled by Yvonne in her 1995 book The Ditchdigger’s Daughter, which won critical acclaim and television appearances for the author on Oprah, the Today show, and Good Morning America. “Daddy believed in us,” said Dr. Thornton, a Teaneck resident, who graduated with honors from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She is a double-Board certified specialist in obstetrics, gynecology, and maternal-fetal medicine and a professor at New York Medical College. “No amount of success in your profession can make up for failure as a parent,” said the mother of two. Warm and funny, Thornton captivated the audience of more than 50, many of whom were patients and colleagues. Married for more than 35 years to an orthopedic surgeon, Thornton had a confession. “When I became a doctor, I thought I caught the brass ring, that there was nothing left to prove, but I was wrong," she said. "Even when I got there, I found there was another mountain to climb.” She coped with gender and racial bias in her profession and with the horror of her first and only maternal patient fatality, a 19-year-old with uncontrollable bleeding. “I watched her die on the table,” Thornton recalled, and vowed it would never happen again. Despite the demands of medicine, the doctor found her other role more challenging. "It’s hard to be a parent,” she said. But when faced with limiting her kids’ video game playing or vetoing her daughter’s plan to dress as Tina Turner for Halloween, Thornton fell back on the wisdom of her father. “You give them boundaries…then keep your heel on their neck,” she joked. It seems to work. Both her son and daughter are now successful doctors, too. In a touching excerpt from the memoir, three of the Thornton sisters took their father out to lunch to celebrate his birthday. “We went to a hoity-toity place,” Thornton said. “The kind we couldn’t afford when we were young.” As a special surprise for her dad, Yvonne asked the maitre’ d to page “Dr. Thornton.” When the announcement was made, all three sisters stood up. “It was the best birthday gift we could have ever given him,” laughed Yvonne. Declaring that she had delivered 5,542 babies, Dr. Thornton recognized some of them in the audience and asked them to stand. After a question-and-answer, her fans lined up to have their copies of the memoir signed. “She saved my life,” said Dayle Yoskowitz of Suffern, N.Y., who had come to Dr. Thornton 27 years ago with a high-risk pregnancy. “I nearly had a stroke.” Her daughter, Sara, who sat alongside her, had been born six weeks early. “I’m so grateful, to her,” Yoskovitz said. “She was a wonderful doctor and so kind and caring.” Theodora Lacey of Teaneck had been the seventh-grade teacher of Dr. Thornton’s son, Woody, at Thomas Jefferson School. “I’ve known the family a long time, and Yvonne and I are sorority sisters,” she said. Marcia Battles, a River Edge teacher, was impressed with Dr. Thornton’s speech. “I also heard her speak 14 years ago to students, and I thought she was very inspiring.” Praising the work ethic Donald Thornton instilled in his daughters, Battle said, “I think she says things students today need to hear.”