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I'm a leukemia survivor, and I recall during my darkest days in the hospital when my friends would come to see me, especially the male friends - they had certain mortality issues with their visit.

For the last 20 months, I've just been going from one hospital to another.

I had several near death experiences or very, you know, close calls, if you may, in Iraq. You know, there was an incident where I was nearly kidnapped.

I once spent an entire night in a hotel in New York looking across the way into someone's apartment where nothing was happening but daily life, a phone call, television watching, staring into the fridge. Seeing how those strangers lived over that small distance and in absolute silence moved me deeply.

I had one relative who passed away but fortunately none others. So my sort of experience of it is quite limited, thankfully.

I've lived most of my life in Manhattan, but as close as Brooklyn is to Manhattan, there are people who live there who have been to Manhattan maybe once or twice.

I spent a lot of my life schlepping around New York with people not doing things for me.

I tell residents, if you gave me two patients with identical problems, and one of them had family at the bedside with a lot of laughter, plus photos and a quilt from home, and next door was another patient who was alone every time I came by - I'm going to be very nervous about the isolated patient's mental status.

I met my husband, Jacob, in medical school. We married and went to live in Hawaii where his family lived. It was very beautiful, but I wasn't used to being on an island and needed wide open spaces. Eventually we moved to Maine, New England.

New York City is crazy and beautiful and really close to my heart, and I've always had dear friends here - family, actually, I would say.