I’ve always wanted to be in medicine. Growing up I felt a great need to understand people, to hear about what was affecting them, and to help them in any way I could. I remember watching my mom suffer from debilitating migraine attacks. I would find her crying in the bathroom, holding her head in pain. I would get her cool towels, run her a bath and just sit with her, waiting for the pain to end. I felt powerless. I wanted to understand what was happening to her and to end her suffering. Becoming a doctor was the natural next step.
In medical school I gravitated towards neurology because the brain and its relationship to the rest of the body fascinated me. To me, the brain was like the great unknown, beautiful yet elusive with endless possibilities and infinite nooks and crannies to explore. During my residency, I fell in love with headache medicine. It makes sense given my personal experience with migraine. Not only does my mom have migraine but so do I and I believe it runs in my family. Even though migraine is not something tangible that we can see on a scan or an image, it is a real, chronic, and debilitating condition. I have since dedicated my career to helping people who struggle with migraine and other headache disorders. I honestly couldn’t imagine doing anything else.