Her hand barely spanned the length of my palm, held open to her as she trailed slightly behind me. “We are so close, Hazel, I know you can do this!” I encouraged her. Immediately, Hazel was reinvigorated, and her newfound energy propelled her within my reach.

I have always loved a challenge, whether it has been conducting scientific research since age 15, volunteering on Massachusetts General Hospital’s (MGH’s) chemotherapy unit, stepping on the ice as the first woman to play men’s hockey at MIT or teaching genetics as an undergraduate teaching assistant (TA) with a team of graduate TAs.

My mother was my only parent after my father abandoned us during my childhood in rural Ghana.

“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.

“River rat pride!” I looked up from the metallic charms in my hand as these familiar words rang through the monotonous buzz of the Ann Arbor Art Fair crowd. In front of me stood an old friend, with arms extended, ready for the inevitable embrace ahead.

Monday morning roll call in Ms. Penner’s first grade class was my recurring nightmare. The explanation of my weekend, always butchered and mispronounced, resulted in constant giggling.

I stood nervously among a sea of bodies in the chilly pre-dawn glow. My impulsive idea to run the 2013 Seattle Marathon was finally coming to fruition. Surging forward at the sound of the gun, it didn’t take long to settle into the familiar rhythm of all those early morning runs around Lake Washington.

A soothing warmth on my chest and a pervading smell of menthol—the memory that imposes itself on my thoughts whenever I recall the experiences that sparked my passion for medicine.

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.

There are not many situations in which the ability to read could make the difference between life and death.

Behind all action lies a driving force; a love; a passion. That 200 × 85–foot rink enclosed by hard, wooden boards and transparent plexiglass grabbed ahold of me at a young age.

The first time I learned the details of cardiac catheterization, I was translating the procedure in Spanish to a stoic Mexican man in a white Stetson hat.

The year I turned seven, the words papeles and inmigrantes entered my vocabulary and settled on my family as a fog of dissonance between the American I was and the Americans my family members were not.

“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.

I yearn for a profession that weaves human connection, challenge and innovation into my everyday life.

I sat in the US Senate’s Hart Building, memo in hand, nervously awaiting my chance to explain the complexities of an FDA draft guidance to staffers working on the Senate counterpart to the 21st Century Cures bill.

It’s not every day you help a kid become Iron Man. It happened for me during an internship at the NIH.

I have not always known I wanted to be a doctor, romantic though it may be to say otherwise. As a young Wyomingite boy who spent his days roaming the vast expanses of prairie that were my backyard, I wanted to be an Egyptologist who worked outdoors digging up the ancient past or a veterinarian who traveled from ranch to ranch, vaccinating cows or delivering foals.

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.

If my DNA could be extracted from an inanimate object, that object would be my grandpa’s address book. It represents his and my determination to connect with those around us and have a life devoted to service.