“I’d never want to be a doctor” I told my best friend at 14 years old. By that time I’d already begun working as a professional dancer, and the extensive years of schooling it took to get into medicine seemed ludicrous for a job that seemed gruesome and exhausting. Less than one year later my entire perspective was changed. Random aches coalesced into debilitating stiffness and pain in every joint of my body, and I was soon diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. My dancing career was over, and my life became filled with appointments, medications, and a lot of anger. However, with the proper infusion regimen and combination of pills, I slowly started to get better, and less than a year after my diagnosis I realized that I wanted to go into healthcare to help people the way that my doctor had helped me. However, it was far from an easy battle. With this newfound desire to become a physician I knew that academic success was critical to achieve this goal, but this was not something my disease made easy. Throughout high school and college I missed large amounts of school due to doctor’s appointments, infusions, and limited mobility. In order to succeed I had to constantly catch up on missed work and struggle to finish assignments when my swollen joints couldn’t hold a pencil or type. Before I was 19 I learned to navigate the healthcare system on my own and to be successful despite chronic pain. It was this exposure that began to reveal to me many of the flaws and barriers present in the US healthcare system. This drove me to major in sociology where I learned about the systematic inequalities present within our current medical system, and witnessed these myself whilst performing my senior research project in a free clinic on the impacts of language barriers on healthcare outcomes. These experiences have created a lifelong passion for advocacy and working with disadvantaged groups. After beginning medical school I served as my school’s Senator for Legislative Affairs, advocating for patients and healthcare providers with legislators at state and national levels. I also worked with underserved communities as a student co-director of the Union Gospel Mission’s free clinic in Yakima, Washington not only coordinating other medical student volunteers and helping to see patients within the clinic, but also was able to use my passion and experience in free clinics to help UGM build a new program directly serving unhoused patients within homeless encampments. Though I never will say that I am grateful for my diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, it has given me an insight into the world of chronic pain and the difficulties of navigating the healthcare system in a way that many of my fellow medical students have never had to face. It has showed me how much adversity I am capable of overcoming and I believe was a key part of building the resilience that has gotten me through the stressors and challenges of medical school. It ignited my passion for working in advocacy, free clinics, and with underserved communities, and beyond this, my disability continues to fuel my empathy for these communities and for patients with chronic illnesses, and for all of that I must admit that I am grateful.