We always lived with members of my extended family. Basically throughout my childhood, a cousin or an uncle was always on their way to somewhere and our house in Tampa was a pit stop along the way, which was really cool. Our home life consisted of a joint family. My dad has three brothers and one sister, and borders were porous. Now we’ve spread out but only a little — three uncles live within 15 minutes of each other, and everybody still hangs out with everybody.
As for how medicine came into my life, one of my dad’s brothers lived with us during medical school. He studied pediatrics and I have really clear memories of hearing about his experiences and feeling strongly influenced by that. Also, my mom triple majored in sciences in college, and she plays an important role in my life. So doctoring was kind of in the blood for me. Additionally, on the pediatric side of things, I have also always loved kids, maybe because of cohabitating with lots of different generations.”
Read More: https://medium.com/capsule-cares/dear-doctor-reenal-patel-ff0323fc5966
