I went to medical school because I wanted to do something relevant with research. I discovered that I loved pediatrics for three reasons. The first was that, as I scientist, I wanted to study single diseases at a time—unlike adults, children tend to only have one disease at a time. The second was that I married and had children while in medical school, so I identified with children and parents. The third was that, of all the doctors I met in medical school, the ones I liked best were pediatricians.

When I first entered the field of pediatric oncology, we were only saving about 25 percent of the children. Today, depending on the disease, we are saving closer to 80 percent of children with cancer. Still, a lot of my work is about helping families when treatments are not working. What I find most rewarding is helping families make critical decisions about their children’s health.

Diversity means having different people with unique experiences work together. It occurs in cases when diversity is interdisciplinary, as in our palliative care program when physicians, nurses, chaplains, collaborate to support our families. Diversity exists between age groups, genders, racial and ethnic groups, and this diversity helps us to solve problems in new ways. The students intrigue me the most here at Stanford. The faculty are incredible too, but the students are exceptional. I work with undergraduates, medical students, post docs, and clinical fellows. They are all exceptional. 

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