Finding Light in the Uncertain

"Our patients and their families are living that one-in-a-thousand life. Even if focusing on rarity helps us cope with the unpredictability of our own pregnancies and of the world in pandemic, rarity cannot protect us from the truth that the terrible is possible."

Katharine Callahan is a neonatology fellow, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and an ELSI genomics fellow, Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, University of Pennsylvania. Elizabeth Salazar is a neonatology fellow, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. As two neonatologists, both navigating pregnancies in a landscape of uncertainty, Katharine and Elizabeth find strength and inspiration in the families they serve and support.

This essay was published in the Teaching and Learning Moments column in the September 2021 issue of Academic Medicine. Read the essay at academicmedicine.org.