Why did you choose to become a doctor?
I took a roundabout route. I was a humanities major when I was an undergrad. I studied the Renaissance in Italy. But I came from a family of scientists and that was always in the back of my mind – I knew it was a part of me.
When I graduated from college and entered the workplace, I realized I wanted my work to have a real impact on people’s lives. Because I had this natural inclination for the sciences and still wanted to work with people, going into medicine became a logical transition. It has the intellectual appeal of science and problem-solving but it’s also so much about working with people and your relationships with them.
What’s a memory from your residency that’s stayed with you?
I trained at NYU and most of my time was spent in Bellevue Hospital, which was unlike any place I’ve ever been before or since. We would see rare diseases from all over the world. There’s a whole floor that’s dedicated to treating tuberculosis. There used to be a wing dedicated to HIV patients. Having that unique range of exposures during my residency is something that I really appreciated.
When you go into practice, it’s easy to develop tunnel vision about things. But having been so immersed in hands-on care during my residency and exposed to such a wide range of diseases and people – it helps me keep things in perspective when I’m caring for patients today.
What’s a quirk of yours?
I can be very fanatical about gardening. I have a busy career, three kids, and two dogs – life gets really hectic. But no matter what’s going on, if I go out and weed for an hour, all the noise disappears. It’s therapy.
Why are you excited to join Private Medical?
My first answer is having more time to focus on the patient-doctor relationship. That’s what I love about what I do every day – it’s why I went into medicine. The other piece is my colleagues. We do our work as a team, bouncing ideas off each other, troubleshooting together. There are so many ways in which that adds to the best medicine and care for our members.
