To call my medical career a series of random pivots is an understatement. I have multiple sclerosis (MS) to thank for this wandering journey, one with an uncertain destination, but a surprisingly meaningful landing place.
Anesthesiology was my first love. I adored tinkering with the anesthesia machine, working with powerful anesthetics, and being the quiet caretaker behind the drapes. It was the perfect space for problem-solving and micromanaging, and honestly, a great way to avoid the clinic, where rushing through patient after patient left everyone frustrated, including me.
Then MS struck, taking my solitude with it. A weak left hand and arm made practicing anesthesia unsafe, and I was forced to reimagine my place in medicine.
Curiosity led me first to hospice and palliative medicine, which turned out to be too emotionally heavy. Integrative medicine was next. Within hours at my first conference, I knew I had found my people: fellow doctors and nurses whose own health challenges had taken them down a different path to healing themselves and their patients.
From there, I sought out traditional Chinese medicine to determine if acupuncture was real or a magical placebo. After a car accident left me with spine pain from top to bottom, acupuncture dropped my pain to zero for three days. Chinese medicine made no sense to the conventionally trained parts of my brain, but the results were undeniable.
Mind-body medicine and functional medicine rounded out this unconventional tour, which eventually brought me to Stanford’s Center for Integrative Medicine, where I was hired to practice acupuncture. It was the perfect playground to experiment with everything I’d learned.
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 The healing power of community
Looking back, what surprised me most about this career detour was how much I actually love talking to patients. In one-on-one visits, I saw people shift their daily habits and slowly feel better. I didn’t cure anybody, but they did become more capable and engaged. One of the joys of lifestyle medicine is watching patients with complex chronic illness learn to cope and become more like themselves.
But the anesthesiologist in me is impatient — and very interested in scalability. So I began experimenting with shared medical visits, teaching groups of patients and helping them apply what they had learned. In 2017, my teaching was clunky, but no one cared; patients were just relieved to be in a room with others who truly understood. In that hour, the isolation of chronic illness faded. We learned together, brainstormed obstacles, and shared resources. I was watching healing happen in real time, accelerated by the power of community.
There are things that only a patient can teach you: how careless medical language can wound and disempower, how chronic disease can shatter identity, and how the most important therapy might be in rebuilding a life, not adjusting a medication. Patients also taught me more about supplements, gadgets, and alternative therapies than I could ever learn on my own.
Now I work exclusively with groups, offering weekly meetings on topics like fatigue, gut health, detox programs, and more. I get to utilize every skill from every pivot to help people shift their environments, routines, and behaviors, so they can feel better. That, to me, is the definition of healing.
So, thanks to MS, I now spend my days talking to patients, something I never expected to love. I’m grateful to have landed in a space where I get to focus on creating health while my colleagues fight disease. Working in community, in this space of healing, is truly beautiful medicine.
Note: Multiple Sclerosis News Today is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those of Multiple Sclerosis News Today or its parent company, Bionews, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to multiple sclerosis.