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There are articles you read and nod along to. And then there are the ones that stop you, the ones that make something shift quietly at first and then all at once.
In Time Is Finite (read it here: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2847647), Dr. Jenna Taglienti writes about being a physician, a program director, a parent and then suddenly, a patient. A diagnosis that did not fit the narrative. A life that, from the outside, looked full and stable, interrupted in a way no one expects.
She writes about endurance and about how medicine teaches us to push, to persist, to give more of ourselves because the work matters. And it does. The relationships matter. The impact matters. The sense of purpose is real.
But she also writes something that is harder to sit with.
That line stayed with me.
Because it is true in a way that is uncomfortable to admit. Institutions are designed to continue. They are built to function without any one of us. That does not make our work meaningless, but it does put it in perspective. And if I am honest, this is something I had been coming to terms with long before I had language for it.
In May of 2024, we lost James Tucker. He was the husband of one of my best friends, Dr. Melissa Parsons, our Residency Program Director and my co-founder of SheMD. His death was sudden and devastating, the kind of loss that does not just bring grief. It disrupts your sense of normal. It makes everything feel a little more fragile and a little less guaranteed.
James was the kind of person who made life feel full. He was the planner, the host, the one who made sure everyone was included, everyone was laughing, everyone had a drink in their hand and a place at the table. He showed up for big moments and small ones and made them better just by being there.
And when we lost him, everything shifted. Not just emotionally, but practically.
Melissa, in the middle of unimaginable grief, had to step away from her clinical work. And in that moment, many of us stepped forward to support her, to support the program, to keep things moving. I found myself stepping more deeply into my role, taking on more responsibility and helping hold things together in a time when everything felt unsteady. And that felt right.
It was what we do in medicine. When something breaks, we show up. We fill the gaps. We take care of each other. But at the same time, something else was happening quietly in the background.
Losing James changed the way I thought about time. About presence. About what it actually means to show up for the people in your life, not just in crisis, but in the ordinary moments that we so often assume will always be there.
Around that same time, both of my parents began having their own medical issues. The kind that come with appointments, procedures, surgeries, and uncertainty. The kind that remind you, in a very real way, that time is not infinite, even if we often live like it is. And for the first time in my career, I started to fully acknowledge the tension between where I was needed professionally and where I was needed personally.
For years, I had poured myself into my roles as Assistant Program Director and Assistant Clerkship Director. I loved the work. I believed in it deeply. I built relationships, mentored residents, shaped programs, and found real meaning in being part of something bigger than myself.
But slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the question started to change. It was no longer, what more can I give here? It became, what am I missing somewhere else?
In January of 2025, I made the decision to step back. Not abruptly. Not out of burnout. And not because the work had lost its meaning. But because my understanding of time had changed. Because I had seen, in a way I could not unsee, that life does not wait for the right time. That the moments we delay, the visits, the trips, the time with family, are not guaranteed later. And because I had come to understand something that felt both obvious and deeply uncomfortable.
I am replaceable there. The program continued. The conferences still happened. The next group of residents are being trained. New APDs stepped up into my previous roles. The system adapted, just like it always does. But at home, I am not replaceable.
And because of that decision, for the first time in my career, I had the space to be present. To go to appointments. To sit in waiting rooms. To be there for surgeries. To show up not as the physician in the room, but as the daughter. In the last 18 months, I have spent more time with my parents, my brother, my family, and my friends than I had in the previous ten years. I have taken trips with my parents, who are in their 70s. Ordinary trips in many ways, but they do not feel ordinary when you start to realize they are not guaranteed.
My brother asks me sometimes, half joking but not really, How many more times do you think we will get to do this? How much time do they have left? And there is not a good answer to that. But the fact that we are asking the question changes everything. It reframes time in a way that medicine does not teach us to see. We think in shifts, in schedules, in academic years, in promotions and productivity. There is always a next step, a next responsibility, a next thing to do. There is always more time. Until there is not.
Reading Dr. Jenna Taglienti’s words did not introduce a new idea. It clarified one I was already living. Medicine asks a lot of us. And we give a lot. We are trained to endure. To prioritize the work. To accept fatigue and emotional depletion as part of the job. To believe that the sacrifice will be worth it. And often, it is. But endurance has a cost. And sometimes, that cost becomes clear in moments we never would have chosen. Loss, illness, and the quiet realization that time is moving whether we are paying attention or not.
What this past year and a half has taught me is that there has to be a boundary. Not between caring and not caring. But between giving everything and giving enough. I still believe in medicine. I still believe in education, in mentorship, and in the importance of the work we do. But I no longer believe that it should come at the expense of being present in my own life.
The meaning of our work is profound. But the meaning of our presence at home is irreplaceable. The world may need us as physicians. But the people who love us need us as ourselves. And that is the role no one else can fill.
