years. She had only just recently retired, most of her career spent working at a single clinic. She bore witness to demographic change and innovations in medical practice and watched her pediatric patients grow up to become parents themselves. She recalled caring for patients with AIDS-defining illnesses during her residency — how staff would refuse to draw these patients’ blood for fear of contagion and how it was up to the residents to care for these patients as they died, often alone. “They always died,” my mother reflected soberly. “There was no real treatment yet, and everybody died.” Just a few years later, with the arrival of antiretroviral therapy, suddenly, HIV was no longer a death sentence. My mother still remembers the first patient she saw after the advent of AZT. The patient had previously declined testing, but then he became really sick with a lung infection, diarrhea and thrush. He finally agreed to be tested and was quickly started on therapy. Thirty years later, he was still alive: the first of her patients to not die from the virus. There, in Kansas City, so close to where she grew up, my mother reflected on her long career as a family doctor. She told me about her patients, their children and then their children’s children — sometimes three generations of the same family. Her career epitomized what I thought all doctors did: They came to know their patients, through sickness and through health, from the very beginning until the very end. The timing of my mother’s career sometimes feels uncanny, as she retired just as I was accepted to medical school. I can’t help but feel that she was handing off the baton to me just as she finished her final lap, one Dr. Pernick making way for another. “It was a good career,” she told me. “It really was … you’ll see.” Rachel and her mother enjoying the photo booth at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art Empowering Families With Simple Tools for Healthy Early Childhood Development In the first few years of life, more than one million new neural connections are formed every second, according to the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard. The human brain doubles to 70% of adult size during the first year of life, 80% of adult size by age three and 90% by age five. During these critical stages when their brains are developing most rapidly, the stimulation children receive through everyday interactions has a significant impact on their brain architecture and can have lifelong effects on their social, emotional and intellectual well-being. It’s important for children to have safe, supportive developmental environments starting from birth — that’s where The Basics comes in. The Basics is a national network of communities dedicated to ensuring infants, toddlers and preschoolers of all racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds are on track to achieve their full potential. By sharing and reinforcing The Basics Principles, health care providers can help families understand brain development in a clear and By Jenna Fischer Promise Partnership Utah 19
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