Life's pretty cool

One of my products was passed to clinical affairs in my company.  This was my first project.  I came up with an idea my very first week on the job, and then I did a ton of science related to obtaining never-before-seen data.  New types of experiments, lots of debugging and talking with physicians.  This data culminated in a new product development.  I had some really great animal studies last year, then great human studies a few months ago.  Now, the design is frozen, and we're getting everything ready to take this to market.  Making money for myself and my company is cool, but the greatest thing happened earlier today.

I was at a local hospital and was talking to someone in a waiting room.  A man roughly 40 years old with his wife and two beautiful twin baby girls, maybe 5 years old.  He mentioned how he could barely move beforehand.  He had multiple corrective surgeries with no luck.  He was involved in the first human trial of a new product.  My product!  He mentioned how the new product has changed his life.  In three weeks he was up and moving, and in four more weeks his life was how it used to be before illness struck him 5 years ago.  He had maybe one year left in his life beforehand, and the physicians think he's going to live a full life now.  I didn't let him know that I came up with the medical device.

After he came out of the appointment, the doctor came out to talk to get me and bring me to his office to talk about the next stage of this device.  The doctor stopped the family and told them that I'm responsible for the product, from inception to implementation.  The wife teared up, and the father gave me a hug.  The girls just sat there.  I suspect the girls weren't told of the dad's severity.  They kept saying, "Thank you. Can we have you over for dinner? Can we take you out? etc.".  I told them I do it to save lives, not get free dinners.  Their thanks is enough.  

When I go through the job grind, I sometimes forget why I do this; why I got into this field.  In academia I plan to do the same.  Although, I would have the freedom to explore diseases outside of the mission statement of my company.  I'm happy where I'm at, I just know I could be happier, and do more good, in the academic field.  I just have to remember how good I have it, how many people have it worse, and keep focusing on what's important in life.  Life's pretty cool.