A trained biomedical engineer, Leighton Elliott, MD, was 11 hours away on a mission trip in Vietnam helping to fit patients with prosthetic legs when he learned his first child had been born. The news arrived via a frantic series of missed Skype calls, followed by a grainy photo of his wife and newborn son.
The pain of missing the milestone was soon eclipsed by clarity, strengthened by the experience of shadowing his clinical mentor, Ha Van Vo, MD, PhD, DPM, on the mission trip, that his true calling was in medicine.
“There were hundreds of people lining up before the sun came up to see my mentor in the clinic,” Dr. Elliott said. “I needed to be there. I took that very seriously. That’s when I first realized I needed to be a doctor.”
It would require a major career change — Dr. Elliott was already in the middle of a master’s program in engineering at the time — but by the plane ride home, he had made his decision.
“I love oncology because of the opportunity to form long-term relationships with patients, and I wanted to care for complex issues from pediatrics through adulthood.” – Leighton Elliot, M.D.