Doing It Wright With No Fear

Abstract

Editor’s note: In the “Practice Profiles” department of Clinical Diabetes , we spotlight clinicians who have chosen to dedicate a significant portion of their time to the care of patients with diabetes. Suggestions for clinicians to interview in the future are welcome and can be e-mailed to levetan@juno.com. I was impressed by an article your health system wrote about you. I appreciated that you place “a premium on others’ ideas and developing their trust.” It seems like you are a natural physician, but before you went into medicine, you had another career? Before attending medical school I was an electrical engineering major at Princeton University and worked for a year as an electrical engineer at Carolina Power and Light Company in Raleigh, N.C. When and how did you decide to become a physician? I decided to pursue a career in medicine while working with a physician on a project in the South Bronx, New York, as a junior in college. I was developing a database of patients for a community health center for the purpose of tracking disease. Where did you grow up? Where have you lived? I grew up all over as a military dependent. I was born in Wilmington, N.C., and lived in France for 4 years between the ages of 9 and 13. We then relocated to Cheyenne, Wy., where we lived for 2 years. I then moved to Denver, Colo., where I graduated from high school. I attended college in Princeton, N.J., for 4 years. I returned to North Carolina to work as an engineer in Raleigh, …