The door steadily opened, and she walked in with a big smile on her face and a bigger Polaroid camera in her hands.

I grew up in a small, coastal town on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. Port Angeles is a close-knit community that fits the cliche of the town where everyone knows each other.

To be a physician is to be a leader. Deciding on a treatment plan when the diagnosis is uncertain; advising a resistant patient to follow the proposed course of treatment; directing nurses and other health care personnel in assisting in patients’ care: these essential duties of a physician require leadership skills.

I was pounding on the treadmill when the call came. As I picked up the phone, my mother’s calm voice came on the line.

My first exposure to medicine began with my aunt, an acupuncturist. I spent a lot of my childhood in my aunt’s clinic “helping” diagnose patients.

Four years ago, I married my college sweetheart. Just over a year later, Sheldon was found without a pulse on the locker room floor at the gym.

When I was sixteen years old and about to become a high school senior, my father had an unexpected stroke: a Pontine Hemorrhage.

“Have a minute to go over this follow-up? It was a tough one.”

I spun around in my chair to face the intern helping me check in on patients a year after their strokes. She looked nervous.

One afternoon, when I was fourteen, I came home from school, tossed my backpack on the couch, and shouted for my Mom. “What’s up?” she called back.

“Foot Care,” “Condoms,” “Yeast Infection Kit.” I squinted to read the labels as I restocked the medicine cabinet in the basement of Harvard Epworth Church. An unpleasant fusion of body odor, tobacco, and artificial grape threatened to overwhelm me.

I still remember witnessing the pain within my own family when my grandfather slowly died from stroke complications after losing his mobility and becoming fully dependent on others.

“You could say I’m on pins and needles,” began my Korean co-teacher, Tara.

“What do you mean?” I asked. Tara passionately studies English in her free time and I’ve grown accustomed to her enthusiastic use of idioms.

My interaction with “ Sister” one afternoon in summer 2012 at Terence Cardinal Cooke (TCC), a 600+ bed skilled nursing facility, imparted me with the gravity of palliative care at the end of life.

From a young age, I was taught to value generosity and kindness. My parents emphasized both local and international philanthropy, encouraging me to volunteer everywhere from the library to the international food packing and distribution center for developing nations.

“What do you know about alcoholism and diabetes?”

This was our third individualized health coaching meeting with an elder who, having grown up in a German household, was used to drinking heavy amounts of alcohol in his childhood and teenage years.

In first grade, a raging fever kept me home from school for days; my mother sat by my side and comforted me as best as she could. She never called a doctor. In fourth grade, I sprained a toe while playing soccer.

Olivia’s eyes darted as I dragged her favorite goldfish through the water.

“Now, take a breath!” I reminded her, wiggling the toy onward, guiding her freestyle strokes.