The ladies of Bravo’s ‘Married To Medicine: Los Angeles’ are back! With a variety of doctorates and personalities, it’s no surprise that Dr. Imani Walker, 44, feels season 2 will offer a totally fresh perspective. “This season I feel like is a lot better and a lot stronger because we know each other,” the psychiatrist told HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY from her home in Los Angeles on May 15. “We have another year of friendship under our belt but we have another year of getting used to being in front of the camera,” she also spilled.
With one season behind her, Dr. Imani felt more equipped to handle what it’s like to put herself out there for viewers. Despite being more comfortable in front of the camera, she admits it was still tough to make the transition from her day job to reality star. “I went to med school, I don’t have anything about this!” she joked. “You’re thinking about so many things, like, ‘Did I suck in my stomach enough,’ or, ‘Do I have on enough lip gloss?’” the beauty sweetly added.
It turns out time and patience were key for the fiesty doctor to stop caring what people thought of her. “After awhile you’re kind of like, ‘whatever,’ because it’s reality TV and you want people to be able to see you as you are,” Dr. Imani shared. “This season it definitely brought us closer together. It was a lot more fun because we know each other more and when it comes time for the cast trip it’s hilarious. It’s a lot of fun,” she teased.
Dr. Imani has been keeping busy during the COVID-19 outbreak, taking calls (like ours!) from the comfort of her own bed. She’s still continuing to work with her patients closely from afar as we see a spike in mental health during this time of social isolation across the world. “Treating patients during the time of COVID has been kind of interesting because I can kind of see the kind of progression of some illnesses going on, so two weeks in, I see patients with depression which makes sense because it takes two weeks to diagnose depression,” the psychiatrist, who serves as Medical Director of Gateways Hospital & Mental Health Center, said. “And with some of the patients who have severe mental illness, some of them are getting paranoid and stuff. I am now pretty much just seeing patients exclusively through telemedicine which means that I can’t be in front of them. It’s been challenging, but honestly, I think that my patients have been doing pretty well considering.”
There are a myriad of things one can do to get through this time with no right or wrong way of coping. “Basically I’m telling people that going back to normal is not going to be an option because if you think about, ‘Oh, do I really want to go to a restaurant like how it was before and sit that close to someone that I don’t know?’ Dr. Imani said. “It’s easy to be like, ‘Oh, I’m just going to drink a bottle of wine every day and I’m going to be fine,’ but I think it’s really important for those people to go outside and obviously maintain social distancing because as much as I like being in the house, there comes a point where I feel like I’m going a little nutty because I haven’t felt the sunshine shine on my skin. I’ve just been telling people, treat yourself with care,” she admitted, along with some words of wisdom for those struggling at home.
“Don’t feel like you have to try and do everything that your heart desired. You don’t have to solve your New Year’s resolution right now,” she declared. “We have a ways to go before we’re out of this. We needed to take a break and this is the break that we’ve been given and we just need to take more advantage of that.”
Married To Medicine Los Angeles airs Sundays on Bravo at 6pm.