mater nearly 25 years after graduating
has definitely led some personal
reflection and introspection I have come
to the conclusion that I am solidly in
middle-age you know that point in life
where you’ve maybe lived as many years
as you will going forward that point in
life were selectively bodily functions
start to fade such as my eyesight so
it’s just as well we’re not allowed
notes for these TED talks I’ve also
thought back to some comments my wiser
older sister made to me a few years
after I’d graduated from Brunel and was
struggling with how I was going to live
up to the lofty goal of making the world
a better place which I’m sure most burn
aliens think of at least at some point
our lives she said to me Christine no
one tells you how hard it is to be a
regular person life over the following
20 years I have learned that happiness
comes from following your own passion
defining your own successes by all usual
societal standards I have had many
successes I am a two-time Olympian
Fulbright Scholar and physician at one
of the most reputable clinical practices
California yet throughout these
successes I’ve also had internal
struggles at different points in my life
that we fit her those Forks in the road
I’ve wondered just because I can doesn’t
mean I should and had to follow the path
so I guess you could say my Olympic
journey began during childhood as so
many do I was a really active kid
participated in lots of school sports
and I was fascinated to watch the
Olympics sometimes even watching by
myself my family members were too busy I
followed my older sister and brothers
footsteps into distance running and
although I was a talented freshman in
cross country and track
I realized by my junior year in high
school that I was not going to be the
next Barry Decker I had watched a 3,000
meter in the Olympics at the Los Angeles
84 Olympics nonetheless I enjoyed my
time here on the Grinnell cross-country
team which formed such a significant
part of my social networking instead of
pursuing an elite athletic career during
college I focused on what makes so many
Grinnell experiences amazing I attended
innumerable lectures on social and
political problems in the forum which by
the way used to be the center of campus
life
I participated in debates about the
worlds and stations most vexing social
problems I was an occasional member of
the Grinnell streaking Club which
tormented bng crew through campus and of
course I obtained a fabulous education
I learned to think and write critically
I did a semester study abroad in Nepal
all the while completing a Bachelor of
Arts in chemistry and completing my pre
medical school requirements
I suppose my first significant life fork
came during my senior year at Grinnell I
was approached by one of my faculty
mentors and encouraged to apply for a
Rhodes Scholarship
while I was complemented by the
acknowledgement I had to be honest I
really had no interest studying in
Oxford the year after graduation instead
like so many Grinnell seniors I viewed
the Thomas J Watson fellowship as the
ultimate prize
because it allowed unrestricted funds to
do independent study in a developing
nation such as Nepal where I wanted to
return and explore further some of those
social healthcare discrepancies I had
witnessed during my semester study
abroad almost on a whim I also applied
for a Fulbright fellowship see to that
point the Fulbright Committee had never
selected a non PhD candidate for the
year and they Paul
I remember my spring semester my senior
year great disappointment when I was not
awarded the Watson fellowship and then
the incredible elation a few weeks later
when I was boarded the Fulbright
fellowship after the committee decided
to fear from its usual practices that
following year and they Paul was
credible experience it was also a very
difficult year after spending ten months
studying the beliefs practices of
caregivers of children with diarrheal
disease I realized they Paul didn’t need
more physicians it really needed
engineering but more importantly needed
the political will power provide a clean
water source for its people and Nepal
certainly did not need a self-proclaimed
medical anthropologist with a lot more
to learn about public health and
international policy so my Olympic
journey picked up an unusual time in
life after I had started medical school
at Stanford University I junior high
basketball knee injury caught up with me
about a decade later and I was no longer
comfortable running for my much needed
exercise a classmate of mine was on the
Stanford Road Cycling team which is a
club sport and that’s available for
graduate students to participate in he
encouraged me to come out and by the end
of my first season competing I realized
I was a far more talented road cyclist
than I ever ever been distance runner my
competitive progression in Road Cycling
was accelerated by living in that
Stanford community or there are so many
Olympians including to us women who
qualified for and competed a Sydney
Olympics thousand a mere two years after
I had started my own cycling journey one
of those women became my professional
team director few years later she sat
down with me the fall of 2003 and helped
me focus my goal of qualifying for the
2004 Olympics see in road cycling for
the Olympics there are two events a road
race which requires teamwork although
individual medalists are awarded and the
individual time trial in 2004 the
selection for the United States team of
three women for the road race and only
two of those would get to do the time
trial the selection criteria who did two
automatic nominations
one was for the winner of the national
time trial championships and the other
was for the winner of the National Road
Race championships since I was an
outsider to the national team and then
the road race required teamwork as I
noted I felt my chance of winning the
road race was very slim I focused on
winning the time trial Championships and
in fact eight months later I achieved my
goal and won the national time trial
Championships which qualified me for the
2004 Olympic road team it was definitely
one of the happiest days of my life as
you can see on my expression this photo
then the following two months were
actually for the most stressful in my
life because I had to continue to prove
myself to the national team coach and
the selection committee in order to be
nominated for one of those to start
spots for the individual time trial
because ironically winning
the Time Trial championships only
qualified me to be a member of one of
the three women on the road team to
selection for the time trial was not
made until we had arrived in the Olympic
Village a mere three days before our
road race event which we were going to
be teammates and five days before the
individual time trial events sadly one
of my most vivid memories of my 2004
Olympics was sitting under the shade
tree outside the Olympic Village on the
briefcase of one of the pro bono lawyers
provided by US Olympic Committee to
settle arbitration cases you see the
third teammate who didn’t get nominated
for the time trial belt she also was
deserving and started an arbitration
against the process I did get to compete
in the time trial in Athens and finished
a surprising fourth place which was
actually a surprisingly good result for
me since it was my first significant
international time trial event yet
somehow I felt like a failure
since the three other US representatives
in the time trial achieved gold silver
and bronze medals 2004 was also a
transitional year with respect to drug
testing for doping methods among
athletes the following year the u.s.
gold medallist Tyler Hamilton who had
been teammate of Lance Armstrong’s had
his gold medal stripped from him after
it was discovered he had learned had
used new blood doping methods the summer
of the 2004 Olympics while the US I’m
sorry while the women’s peloton
considered generally a cleaner group of
riders when athlete in the Olympics
finishing fourth place there are still
those unpleasant begging uncertainties
I continued racing through my fellowship
training in rheumatology and in 2006 I
accomplished my goal of getting the
bronze medal in the world championships
in Salzburg Austria that result
essentially qualified me for the Beijing
Olympic team for the United States where
I again played the team role in the road
race and got to focus my individual
goals in the individual time trial in
the time trial this Olympic Games I
finished fifth place although I was
actually closer to the bronze medalist
on time this time finishing three
immediately after that event one of the
USA Cycling officials commented to me
what could I what could have been had I
not also been completing my medical
training through my cycling career I
replied I was quite happy with my
balance life wouldn’t have done it the
other way but the truth is I couldn’t
have afforded to do it any other way
see by continuing in medical training I
could continue to defer payment of my
medical school loans which had reached
six figures by the time I had started by
crazy women professional cyclists simply
are barely paid a livable wage let alone
one that would allow me to start paying
back my medical school loan so was my
cycling career a success I guess for
those outside the Olympic bubble it was
but to a u.s. athlete there’s definitely
a sense that achieving a medal
so the next significant life fork was
the decision to leave academic medicine
for clinical practice Rheumatology at
that point I have been progressing as
expected had an excellent faculty mentor
had earned a couple research grants and
a couple peer-reviewed articles but I
had to be honest that I didn’t wake up
every morning wondering what scientific
question I could ask next I didn’t want
to give up most of my clinical practice
which was the advice of my faculty
Mentors in order to have a successful
research career although is really
difficult to tell my faculty mentor who
had believed in me that I was leaving
academic medicine I had to remind myself
my motto just because I can doesn’t mean
I should and follow the path that felt
right at the time now 11 years into
clinical practice although I’ve had many
memorable patients and can claim at
least partial credit for saving a few
lives I still ask myself am i doing
enough for society at large and am i
reaching my potential and what does that
mean anyway so I come back to my older
sisters comments she made to me years
after I’d graduated from Grinnell no one
tells you how hard it is to be a regular
person what if we believed the journey
was more important than the outcome even
those by usual societal standards who
seemed to have an easier journey in life
need to discover what motivates them and
answer for themselves the dilemma just
because I can doesn’t mean I should
because I believe success is defined by
yourself and by following your own
passions so I wish for you all a
wonderful life journey
and now I’ll get back to my own midlife
journey one in which I’m not sure what will come thank you