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"How has your journey with CF shaped the problems you want to solve and the impact you hope to have on others?"

I have always had an intense passion to learn and a drive to be the best. In 2022, I moved from Utah to San Diego to play collegiate volleyball and study marine biology. I had a plan for my life, but during my first season, my own body began to rewrite it. I spent countless hours in the training room for various injuries and quickly became fascinated by the resilience of the human body. By my second year, an anatomy class revealed my true calling in medicine. However, as my dream of becoming a Physician Assistant (PA) was born, my health began to fall apart. As an elite athlete, I suddenly struggled to breathe while doing the simplest tasks. I faced chronic fatigue and digestive pain that turned daily life into an ordeal. By 2024, I was traveling home monthly for medical testing while trying to maintain my grades and coach volleyball. In the summer of 2025, I received the diagnosis of Cystic Fibrosis (CF). Sitting in that doctor's office, my world crumbled. I wondered how a "sick person" could ever become a healthcare provider. The shift in my perspective came from watching my mother. She has spent her life battling chronic autoimmune conditions and immunodeficiencies, yet she never allowed them to be an excuse. Watching her coach my games and support my dreams while fighting for her own life taught me that a diagnosis is not a limitation, it is a refinement of perspective and purpose. My journey with CF has shaped the problems I want to solve in medicine. First, I want to bridge the gap between clinical data and the lived patient experience. I have been the patient poked and prodded; I have felt the hopelessness of a body that doesn't feel like my own. This perspective was reaffirmed during my first CF walk, where I saw so many children facing the same battles. Looking at them, my motivation shifted from personal grit to a sense of responsibility. I want to be a light for patients, proving that a diagnosis does not dictate one's potential. This lived experience provides a level of empathy that cannot be taught in a classroom. I want to solve the problem of "detached medicine" by looking a patient in the eye and saying, "I know," and truly meaning it. I aim to impact the way chronic illness is managed by focusing on the "grit" of the patient. I am not just studying pathophysiology; I am studying the mechanisms of the life I am fighting to reclaim. This fuels my desire to help others navigate the complexities of long-term illness without losing their identity. I am not a sick person trying to be a provider; I am a person whose journey through illness has prepared me to lead, empathize, and save lives. By becoming a PA, I am choosing to be the change I want to see in medicine, providing light for others as my family and community have done for me.