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This is Keeping it Real, part of a series of videos, where I wanted to interview
people about how they became interested in the healthcare career and
their journey to get to where they are today.
In these interviews, we see that even top ranking leaders and
experts in their fields can have non-linear career trajectories.
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Hi, we're here with Kristi Kirschner at Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital.
Hi Kristi.
>> Hi Melissa.
>> Can you tell me a little bit about your personal journey and
how you became interested in your current profession?
>> Sure, you know, I,
I grew up in Northwest Missouri in a town called Saint Joseph, Missouri.
Now, I went to a liberal arts college.
I really love liberal arts and I wasn't entirely sure that I was going to,
going to medicine until late in the game.
My other love was English and journalism.
I always had a love for the story.
And in some ways I think that's really pertinent to what I do today.
I was attracted to rehabilitation medicine because it was underserved field.
It was a very young field and I thought it would be very interesting to be a part of
helping to map a new profession.
It also really embraced the whole person.
So, it looked at people in the context of their lives, their environments.
It looked at issues of quality of life and function.
Oftentimes, in rehabilitation medicine,
you would start working with people at the onset of a disability,
where there are profound existential questions about the meaning of life.
I like that.
That really pulled me in because of my attraction to the story, and
helping people become the authors of their lives again, and be able to create their
life, life story through understanding what was in the realm of possible.
I'd have to say I can't envision having found a career that could've
been possibly been more satisfying.
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Hi, I am here with Dr. John Franklin, a professor of Psychiatry and Surgery, and
Associate Dean of Minority and
Cultural Affairs here at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Thank you so much for being here today with us, John.
>> Thank you, Melissa.
Now can you tell us a little bit about your personal journey and
how you became interested in your current profession.
>> Well I am, am a Psychiatrist, which is a sub-specialty of medicine.
>> Mm-hm >> Was a little bit of a journey to figure
out that, that's what I wanted to do.
But, I think I was always very interested in the mind and
what was going on in the mind and consciousness.
And I was always somebody who read a lot about sort of the human condition.
And actually, I was a theater major at one point,
which is very much about the human condition.
>> Mm-hm.
>> So, I think that was kind of the backdrop.
I ended up going to medical school.
There was times where I wasn't really encouraged to go into psychiatry because
those are crazy people and why do you want to do that.
One of the things I learned is you have to follow your passion.
You have to follow your bliss.
And I went through a period where I was very confused, and
I didn't follow my bliss, and thought I might be some other kind of physician.
And I came back to what I truly wanted to do, and I've never looked back.
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Hi, we're here with Dr. Teresa Woodruff,
who is the Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology,
and Director of the Women's Health Research Institute at
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Thank you so much for being here today, Theresa.
>> Thank you, Melissa.
>> And one of the cool things about Teresa and I is that we've had the opportunity to
work together over the years because we're in the same department.
>> Right. >> And it has been a sincere pleasure.
You can you tell us a little bit about your personal journey, and
what made you interested in your current career?
>> Sure. When I went to college,
I wanted to be a first grade teacher.
And that's because my mother was a first grade teacher and
my grandmother was a teacher of a one room school house in western Oklahoma.
And so that was really where I thought I would end up as a profession.
When I got to college, then I started taking the science core curriculum and
really fell in love with the answers that where in the back of the book.
And wanted to know how people came up with those questions and the answers and so
began kind of a journey of discovery of what science was all about.
And I got a small grant to go to California Institute of Technology and
did some research on tetanus toxoids.
And so ultimately graduated with a degree in zoology and chemistry.
And went on to graduate school and to a postdoctoral fellowship and
now a faculty position.
So I really came full circle from wanting to be a teacher
to now being a scientist and a teacher and it's been a very exciting journey.
>> Thank you so much.
Thank you for being here.
>> Thank you Melissa.
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Dr. Melissa A. SimonGeorge H. Gardner Professor of Clinical Gynecology and Vice Chair of Clinical Research
