| Despite pursuing a career as a physician scientist in major academic centers throughout the Unites States and then undertaking a second career to discover and develop new medicines for a major global pharmaceutical company I don’t think I truly understood what it means to be a physician until I journeyed into the field of global health. Lessons I learned from trying to make the lives of the poorest people in the world better have transformed the way I work, think and live my life on a daily basis. The battle against death and misery is stark and real for those who live in deprivation. To address these problems physicians must work with a sense of urgency, focus on true innovation, work in partnership with whomever might be able to help and measure the impact of whatever they do. Only then can they live up to he ideals that made them choose medicine as a profession. |
