9 AM on an already sweltering morning, I’m holding the hand of a screaming woman as she miscarries her first child. In a delivery room that was nothing but cold cement floor and hanging sheets separating metal beds, Aisha is one of ten women in excruciating pain. Two hours later, I’m grasping the arms of crying five-year-old Sebastian undergoing circumcision without anesthesia. His mother, unable to afford both the local anesthesia and sterile surgical equipment required for the procedure is forced to choose the latter. Three years ago, I returned to my hometown in Lome, Togo where the challenges of global healthcare were striking but not entirely new to me. As a child, I spent my days running back and forth between my mother’s pediatric and father’s OB/GYN practices in a small west African town. My father performed emergency cesareans through the night. My mother, undeterred by her thick Ukrainian accent, readily treated everything that came her way, from dengue fever to malaria. At an early age, I was immersed in the struggles of rural health practice. Though my parent’s' jobs were far from glamorous, I knew from the offerings of roosters and hens that my parents’ determination and resilience had a lasting impact in the lives of many. Though I did not know how at the time, I knew I wanted to, one day, play a part in that same impact.