I had the chance to shadow at National Jewish, one of the units that performs wholistic care for children with atopic dermatitis.
It was everything I would have dreamed of as a kid - not just top-notch medical treatment (not just pharmaceutical), but physicians who took time to speak, to care, to understand what was going on. It had biofeedback, parent and child support groups, teaching, art therapy. They understood what it meant to have a chronic, incurable illness.
The scientists knew the literature, created the science, researched new treatments. They were kind, personable, caring, excellent physicians and/or scientists.
I was so impressed.
I have dreamed of doing something like this since I was fifteen. This is what launched me on the path to becoming a physician-scientist - was being able to give children the care I wished I had been able to have at that age.
And yet...
I don't know if that's what I want to do for my whole life. In some ways, much of my education has been a quest to understand, What happened? and Why me?
But instead of spending my whole life looking back at the past, perhaps, fifteen years on this quest has been enough?
Is it time to look forward at what I will enjoy doing for another few decades - something that represents the me that is now, not the child I once was?
Can I let go of old dreams to make room for new ones? Can I do both?
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