As I was growing up, I always felt the most valuable experiences in my life came from meeting new people, building connections, and hearing their stories. In college, I spent a few years working as a journalist for that very reason: it felt like a career I could use to connect with others, hear their stories, and amplify their personal experiences to impact a larger issue. Later in college, after shadowing in the emergency department, I found I could apply that same passion and curiosity to medicine and have a more immediate, observable impact on the lives of patients willing to share their stories with me. Now, as an emergency medicine physician at the University of Kentucky, I am honored by patients’ trust every day.
I’m passionate about advocacy through organizations like the Lexington Medical Society for the same reason: impact. We can use the experiences and knowledge we have as physicians to improve patients’ lives, not just in the clinical setting, but by shaping our local healthcare system and our patients’ community-based barriers to health. Combining the immediate gratification of my clinical work with the long-range, incremental change I hope to accomplish with the LMS and KMA gives me a sense of purpose as a physician advocate.