How We Heal

I was sixteen when I almost died. A bacteria called Staphylococcus aureus invaded my body—the body of a healthy varsity athlete—and began to shut it down, one system at a time. Toxic Shock Syndrome, they called it, as my parents watched their healthy daughter fight for her life. Vancomycin was the tinted fluid that tipped the fight against my invisible invaders in my favor, and changed my life.

I believe in the power of the human mind to heal. It was through careful study and design that antibiotics were discovered, chosen, formulated and delivered into my veins, and it is because of this acumen that I lived to turn seventeen years old. Though I did not realize the gravity of my illness at the time, it sparked a strong curiosity within me: how could something so simple as a bacterium, a rogue cell in your own body, or a virus cause so much harm, so quickly? Moreover, how could we design a therapy that can reverse, prevent and stop this harm, equally quickly? I believe in our ability to find and understand the answers to questions like these. I believe in the ability to save a life with science–to heal the body through the feats of the mind.

In medicine we heal physical insults with drugs, surgeries and lifestyle changes. More than that, in our connections to others we heal emotional injuries through compassion, attempted understanding and by communicating shared experience. Science tells us that as humans we all have the same molecular basis for shared emotional experiences: the same neurotransmitters are released in the brain of every human, bind to the same receptor, and can create the same cellular experience of a moment. But it is not science that unites us, rather it is through sharing in relationships with others that our same happiness and shared suffering is truly realized.

When I left the hospital after spending my “sweet sixteen” in the pediatric intensive care unit, I did so with an IV catheter that had to stay in my arm for several weeks; the first time that I found myself in awe at science was the moment that I came home from school and hooked my own veins to a bag of antibiotics stored in the kitchen refrigerator. A simple act, unavailable only 50 years ago, but because it is available today I am alive and training to become a physician. I believe in our ability to understand our own bodies, and to use this understanding to heal them–both physically and emotionally. I believe that people would rather heal than destroy and that we all experience life similarly. I believe that medicine saved my life, and I believe that I can save lives through medicine.