MEET LOCAL LEGENDS: By State

"My dad was a first generation immigrant from Latvia-with seven brothers and sisters-and was a strong believer in social justice. He always stressed the importance of education and fairness for all, and medicine appealed to me as a way of serving the impoverished and disenfranchised."

"I don't come from a medical family. I was thinking of being an artist but became interested in being a doctor when my mother became ill with diabetes in my sophomore year of high school. I then did a professional internship to find out more and was matched with Dr. Winter Griffith, founder of the University of Arizona's family medicine program. And that's when I got interested in family medicine."

"I wanted to be a doctor since I was six years old. I heard stories of people getting sick and then getting better, and I wanted to help heal them. I also loved science and working with people."

"I try to honor my patients and listen to them. I want them to feel that they have control, that they have help, and that they can have meaning in their lives at this most difficult time. The most important thing about the end of life is to make each moment the best possible."

"I like science; the idea of doing something that isn't always the same. And life as a pediatrician is definitely unpredictable!"

"The most important thing in my work is people treating people, both staff and patients, the way they themselves want to be treated. That's the key to quality medical care."

"I entered medical school in 1976, when my first child was six months old and after putting my first husband through law school. My love of science coupled with my social conscience influenced my decision— I wanted to contribute the most that I could for as long as possible. So in my quest for the most useful life I could live, medicine looked like the biggest challenge. Add to that the fact that women in medicine – much less mothers in medicine! – were pretty unusual, I just couldn't resist the challenge."