For anything you want to do, there’s got to be some inspiration. For me, it was the pain I felt when my mother died that prompted my career in medicine. I was only 10 at the time, and she died fairly young of something I felt she shouldn’t have — a ruptured appendix, most likely.

I made the decision to go into medicine based on that experience, because I wanted to prevent and relieve suffering when I grew up. But I also wanted...