Why did you choose to become a doctor?
My parents were both doctors and were in private practices. Both of them had long, multigenerational relationships with their patients. My mom, an ophthalmologist, cared for all ages and really knew entire families.
Having two doctors as parents, everyone would always ask if I was going to become a doctor, too. Up until I was a teenager, I always said definitely not. (I’m not sure why.) But on my fourteenth birthday, I remember having an in-depth conversation with my mom about her work — I suddenly saw being a doctor in a different light. From that point on, I was full steam ahead toward medicine — I didn’t want to do anything else.
If you could achieve one medical breakthrough, what would it be?
I want to see a better way to practice preventative medicine, a way to predict what your health is going to look like in 20 years. Detecting something early is different from preventing it. Having a better understanding of the thousands of variables and their impact on maintaining health would be transformative for primary care.
What’s a quirk of yours?
My biggest vice is chocolate chip cookies. I don’t discriminate, but a great cookie has the right balance of soft and chewy, but also a little crunchy on the outside, with semi-sweet chocolate (no milk chocolate chips here!). Knowing this, my mother-in-law rarely shows up to our house without a batch of dough ready to bake.
