Three Simple Reasons: How Traveling to Africa Reignited my Passion for "Why I Do What I Do"

Nearly ten years ago to this day, I stood at the security desk of my very first job to get my "visitor pass" in New York City. It was my inauguration to the dynamic, exciting and challenging universe of healthcare public relations.

Mind you, up until that day in 2007, my background wasn't in science. I lived abroad in Spain, studied psychology, photojournalism, communications and public relations - but knew that my career had to be rooted in a "meaning" unique to me and only me in order for it to really mean something. So I chose healthcare.

Instantly, I fell in love with science and medicine. As many colleagues will agree, I "nerded out" over data publications, studied manuscripts, followed medical meetings, and began to peel back the layers of the intricacy of human disease and the innovations that patients so desperately needed.

Fast forward many years later. I took an absolutely incredible job - one that I will cherish for the rest of my life - at a leading NGO. As the Communications Manager overseeing global and U.S. social science and public health research, conferences, high-level delegations and meetings, I found myself (rather surprised) to be falling in love with science all over again. This time, it was in the realm of public health.

Here's how it happened:

1. Kenya: I ventured to Nairobi one month after the tragedy of the Westgate terrorist attack. One day, I decided do go off the beaten path and venture "beyond the compound" as my family labeled it. I saw something that I can never un-see: a woman, sitting barefoot on the ground selling fruit, held an emaciated little boy. He couldn't have been more than 18 months old. The first thought that came into my mind was the promise of the Millennium Development Goals (now transformed into the Sustainable Development Goals), and the urgent need for child health and nutrition. Point being: healthcare transcends medicine. It demands attention to the human needs of everyone. Illness does not discriminate.
2. Ethiopia: After my eight days in Kenya, I flew to Addis Ababa to attend the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-sponsored International Conference on Family Planning. Amidst the New York Times interviews and other media pitches I led, the booth I set up for our organization and the learnings I took away from the conference, yet another image stuck with me. It happened to be one of a young girl, perhaps no older than 11 or 12 years of age, and the photograph was featured in the Huffington Post's "The Africa the Media Doesn't Show You" social feature. A former colleague of mine and I had the afternoon free, so we hired a local taxi driver to accompany us to one of the markets, negotiate crafts and trinkets in Amharic, and silently watched as I photographed busloads of beautiful, smiling children returning home from school. The first thought that came into my mind was, "we in America have too much: these children have too little. We are fools for taking this for granted." Some children walked barefoot on dirt roads, some smiled while begging for money. Others looked ill. In that moment, all I thought was, "if governments aren't doing everything in their power to invest in safety and security for these children, so help me God." Living with so little, but being full of so much life: ill or not ill, they never took a single moment for granted.
3. Ghana: Kumasi and Accra are two places I will never forget, and not just because I was hosptialized and spent a month recovering from a vicious water-borne illness. Before I get to my conclusion, I cannot stop profusely thanking the nurses, doctors, former colleagues and friends for their generosity, humility and selflessness, because if it weren't for their acts of kindness, I quite literally would not be living the life I am today. But truthfully, in witnessing the hospital and healthcare system first-hand, the first thought that came to my mind was, "this has got to stop." It just has to stop. Rural community hospitals are resource-deprived to depths you wouldn't believe. Nurses are overworked, underpaid. Doctors are few and far between. You have not experienced true horror until you have sat in a hospital bed in between a traveler with severe Malaria and a child suffering from malnutrition, with her mother crying over her body. You have not fully understood what it is like to look into the depths of a physician's eyes in an underserved, developing nation and see the pain he feels as he gives a child her death sentence.

I never stopped being in love with my job, but I will admit I hit a point where I needed something to keep the fire going. I would not have chosen the hospitalization - who would? But I will say one thing: this is why I do what I do. For these children, these families, the forgotten faces, the overworked healthcare professionals living their lives for the betterment of their communities, the friends and strangers who look after one another. It's the flicker of light that whispers, "We'll get better at this. And we're on our way."