“When President Reagan came to NIH and visited our ward, Phil took him on rounds and was holding a baby who had HIV. He said, ‘Here, Mr. President, why don’t you hold him."
You never know when inspiration will strike. I still remember the day that Dr. Francis Collins came to visit my high school genetics class. At that time, Dr. Collins was the director of the Human Genome Project, an international research program aimed at uncovering the genetic building blocks essential for human life. Imagine our recent excitement when Dr. Collins, now Director of the NIH, specially attended a reception for clinical fellows at the Clinical Center.
When I was growing up, my grandfather would visit and try to teach me thermodynamics. At the time, I thought that this was normal conversation between a grandfather and a little girl. It was several years before I realized that he was an eminent scientist in his home country. My grandfather would always ask me, “How is your science?”
If you've been asking yourself what good your taxpayer dollars have been doing, let me tell you a story. I work at one of the most amazing places in the world. Every day I come in to work energized to see patients, to strategize how to bring new findings into the clinic and talk to brilliant scientists and physicians.
