The Exciting Game of Career Girls: Pippa
Then: Doctor/detective/monk. Now: doctor/health activist.
Name: Pippa
When I was a kid: the 70s
What did you want to be when you grew up?
I decided I wanted to be a doctor when I was 4, and I don’t even really know why. Maybe because a friend's father was a pediatrician and I thought his black bag was neat? As I got older, I developed other reasons. My parents had PhD's in math and physics, and I loved science, especially its practical applications. At one point in elementary school I simultaneously wanted to be a detective and a doctor, and I didn't know back then that medicine involved so much detective work.
The only other long term dream I had was of being a monk. There were many barriers to this, such as, oh, being a second-generation atheist and also not a man. Still, I wanted it hard; the nun life had zero appeal. I read Thomas Merton's Seven Storey Mountain and had romantic dreams of working in the fields, coming in to sing chants, and having scads of time alone in my room to read and write.
What did you actually grow up to be, and how did it happen?
Well, here I am-- a pediatrician for 27 years now! Not a monk, although I still want to do that in a parallel universe. I had no plan to be specifically a pediatrician, actually-- I thought it would be too sad. It was a real surprise to enjoy my peds rotation as much as I did during year three of med school. I took a pretty direct route—a B.S. in bio to med school, residency, and so on. My one deviation was pursuing an MD/PhD program, which took an extra three years, during which time I had both of my children. I didn’t really know what medical research entailed, just thought it sounded interesting
I have not done nearly the amount of research I initially envisioned-- my PhD is in Immunology and I planned to research adult rheumatology, but standing by the centrifuge or working pipettes just didn’t measure up to being one on one with patients and parents in the exam room. Also, clinical medicine moves very quickly, compared to years of research to answer one question. I can be patient, but not quite that patient.
The parts of my job that I never remotely imagined as a child have to do with "community medicine"-- considering the needs of the whole community where I practice. This has led me into advocacy work and political involvement. It’s why I belong to my union, the International Workers of the World, and why I advocate for universal healthcare. As a 4 year old, I never imagined myself becoming a protest medic and running across a city park while cops shot at me with "less lethal" bullets, just because I was trying to rinse tear gas out of people's eyes!
Oh, and I did get that black bag! My parents gave me one when I started med school. But hardly anyone uses those anymore, and I have no idea what happened to it.
Did you have role models (in real life, pop culture, whatever) for the job you wanted to do? Were there people who tried to help you prepare for your dream job? Did anyone discourage you?
My role models for medicine were men -- I read and reread a book my parents had, William Nolen's The Making of a Surgeon, and I identified with him strongly. I shadowed our family doctor, a man, and wanted to be like him. Aside from a biography of Marie Curie—whose single-mindedness fascinated me—most of the books I read about women in medicine were about nurses. I never met a woman physician until med school, but I don’t recall explicitly noticing that. In many ways, I identified more with men than with women. I’m not sure how much was due to lack of role models vs my fundamentally nonbinary nature.
My parents always told me I could be anything I wanted to be-- they downplayed the ongoing barriers, which was probably good but also caused me not to notice some of the sex-related barriers and bigotry. I was mostly oblivious and didn't have doubts that I could do it.
I met only one person who actively, openly discouraged me from getting the PhD along with my MD. He was a biochemist I met during my med school interviews, who noticed I had brought along a book to read while waiting, on Native American cultural practices. Based solely on that, he said I wasn’t focused enough on pure science to get a doctorate [Editor note: WHAT??], but he still thought I should do family practice. When my dissertation process got tough, sometimes I motivated myself to finish out of spite, to prove him wrong.
Did your mom have a job outside the home? If so, was that unusual in your world, or was it common for women to work? What kind of messages did you get from your mom--and/or your dad--about her job?
My mother worked as a teacher, and most mothers I knew worked, so I thought it was normal. However, she did stay home with us until mid elementary school. At the time, I thought it was purely a personal choice. I learned later that she had stopped her PhD work when she became pregnant with me, and she lost her fellowship money. So that’s why she stayed home. She didn't go back to finish her PhD until I was maybe 9 years old, and she graduated when I was in junior high school. I didn’t appreciate then what a magnificent accomplishment it was for her to go back after so much time.
I was aware that my father's income was higher, because he worked at the university and my mother taught high school. But he was supportive of her work.
What advice would you give your kid self about her dream job?
Sometimes I’ve thought I'd like to tell my 4 year old self: look, just because you announced your plan to everybody doesn’t mean you have to stick to it! You can consider a whole range of careers-- be more open-minded! I wonder what I might have done, if I had felt less driven to follow through. But on the whole, I chose a career that has taken me very interesting places and been very satisfying. I still love my work.
What does your today self want to be when you grow up?
I was born in California, but my family moved to Alabama when I was 7, and I've mostly lived there since, until a couple of months ago. After Dobbs, giving patients assistance or advice on out-of-state or self-managed abortions became a felony in Alabama, punishable by 99+ years in prison. I couldn’t shrug my shoulders at patients, and I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in prison, so I left. I now live in northern California and work at a non-profit seeing mostly low income patients. Once California has passed a shield law that protects me from extradition, I want to join with others to mail abortion meds to patients in Alabama and other red states. So I guess I want to be more of an activist in ways that aren't just talk. I want to be in the trenches pushing back against theocratic oppression with something concrete.
I love this so much. I’m so excited for this whole series!
Loved meeting this doctor. The last paragraph of her vision truly inspired me. Thanks for doing these interviews.