I was a child with an insatiable thirst for knowledge and remember enjoying all of my courses almost equally. When it came time at the end of my high school career to choose a major in which to specialize, I was in a quandary.

Although I never married, my brother fortunately did, and I have had the pleasure of watching his three sons and daughter grow up. Several of them now have children of their own. We have been a close-knit family, although often separated by distance, and have shared each other's happiness, sorrows, and aspirations.

I was born in New York City on a cold January night when the water pipes in our apartment froze and burst. Fortunately, my mother was in the hospital rather than at home at the time.

I think it's a very valuable thing for a doctor to learn how to do research, to learn how to approach research, something there isn't time to teach them in medical school. They don't really learn how to approach a problem, and yet diagnosis is a problem; and I think that year spent in research is extremely valuable to them.

One thing that was passed on from generation to generation in my family, over seven generations in 200 years, was never give up. That's the way we live.

I lead a very normal life. I'm just so happy being a mother that everything else revolves around that. If a movie falls through or a TV show doesn't get picked up, I'm pretty easygoing about it because I'm just like, 'Yay, I get to be with my kids more!'

I'm homesick all the time. I miss my animals. I miss my family. I miss my friends.

In my family and in my community, I see people struggling with drug addiction, with poverty and the effects of generational poverty; I see people struggling with lack of access to healthcare.