About Us

Our story

In 2019, Black and Brown families in southeast Michigan faced birth complications at triple the rate of their white neighbors - proof that rushed prenatal visits and thin postpartum support were failing marginalized communities. OB-GYN Dr. Mona Fakih and equity-focused educator and researcher Dr. Batoul Abdallah proposed a simple fix: embed culturally attuned, evidencetrained doulas inside every care team.

With two rounds of funding from the State of Michigan’s Healthy Births Initiative, they launched a pilot: one doula in one neighborhood clinic who was tasked with translating medical jargon, amplifying patient choices, and flagging early warning signs. Within a year, adherence to care plans rose, preventive screenings increased, and birth-outcome gaps began to narrow.

One doula became four; one clinic became three. Today, Doula, Doc & Me places multilingual doulas alongside physicians across southeast Michigan, supporting families through high-risk.

Our blueprint is now ready for any health system ready to close the gap. Because when compassionate advocacy moves in lockstep with clinical excellence, birth disparities shrink and brighter beginnings follow - one doula, one clinic, one family at a time.

Dr. Mona Fakih

Dr. Mona Fakih, DO, FACOOG, RPh is a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist and founder of Obstetrics & Gynecology Associates , where she grew a solo practice into a robust team of six providers. In 2022, she partnered with Together Women’s Health to broaden access to comprehensive care and elevate quality across the practice. Throughout her career, Dr. Fakih has remained committed to delivering babies, managing complex gynecologic conditions, and performing robotic surgeries in collaboration with multidisciplinary teams.

After more than a decade of caring for diverse patients, Dr. Fakih became acutely aware of the critical gaps in traditional perinatal care, especially for marginalized communities. Rushed prenatal visits, overlooked warning signs, and limited postpartum support inspired her to seek a solution. As Medical Director of Doula, Doc & Me, she partnered with equity-focused educator and researcher Dr. Batoul Abdallah to embed culturally attuned doulas directly into clinical care teams. These doulas serve as trusted advocates, helping patients navigate complex conditions like diabetes, hypertension, and perinatal mood disorders, while building the kind of relationships that improve both outcomes and dignity.

In addition to her clinical practice, Dr. Fakih is a dedicated educator and mentor, serving as a clinical adjunct professor at Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine and a clinical instructor at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine. She is also a principal investigator in numerous women’s health clinical trials and serves as a medical advisor to companies such as Natera, BillionToOne, and Talis Biomedical.

Dr. Batoul Abdallah

Dr. Batoul Abdallah is a teacher educator and researcher at the University of Michigan’s Marsal Family School of Education, where she trains students to become teachers. Batoul also has an research tinvestigates how rigorous science learning can be made equitable and culturally responsive. Trained as a molecular biologist, she earned her doctorate in genetics, publishing on ovarian cancer, genome instability, and cancer evolution, before bringing her laboratory expertise into post-secondary classrooms as a science educator.

Her commitment to justice extended beyond the classroom during her own pregnancies, when she witnessed language barriers, referral bottlenecks, and appointment shortages that disproportionately burden families across southeast Michigan. Recognizing the doula’s unique capacity to guide and advocate, Dr. Abdallah partnered with OB-GYN Dr. Mona Fakih to pilot an innovative model: embedding a culturally attuned, evidence-based doula within a neighborhood clinic. The program’s early success—improved adherence to care protocols and reduced disparities in birth outcomes—now informs a broader regional expansion.

Through her combined backgrounds in cancer research, pedagogy, and perinatal equity, Dr. Abdallah continues to train and mentor multilingual doulas, ensuring that compassionate, highquality support becomes an integral part of modern healthcare teams.