Abstract
When the authors were 12 and 14 years old, their worlds shifted suddenly without warning or consent, and bifurcated our lives into "a before" and "an after." They were both diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and found themselves in an "in between" space-young but not healthy, sick but not dying, treatments but not cures, intestines swollen and bleeding but appearing fine on the outside, in every sense the definition: an invisible illness. Their own chronic illness experiences helped to shape our pursuit of careers in healthcare, with one of them choosing pediatric IBD psychology (Jennie David) and the other choosing pediatric gastroenterology (Samantha R. Paglinco). Being patients and healthcare professionals (HCPs) created a new "in between" space to occupy and explore. They continue on in these "in between" spaces and choose to bring all of themselves-as patients and HCPs-as theiy work with pediatric IBD patients in their endless pursuit of caring for young people as full, wonderful, complex, flawed, and worthy humans (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
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