Thus, this is a cautionary tale for physicians and physician trainees. Give yourself the same consideration you give your patients. Keep up to date on your preventive care. Make the appointment for your annual well exam. Schedule your screening mammogram. Get that colonoscopy on the books. And follow up on your results.

There are eight of us, all women, all physicians who take care of the sickest children in the nation in Pediatric Intensive Care Units (PICUs) in the Midwest, the East Coast, the West Coast and the South. Some of us work in community hospitals, and some of us work at nationally rated hospitals, the kind everyone knows. The PICU is the last line of defense for children, but the system is not designed to take on this magnitude of preventable illnesses. This is what haunts us: the reality that we might not be able to care for every child who needs us. We are pro-vaccine, pro-masks and pro-child.

There’s significant and growing health disparity and inequity for children in the U.S.. As clinicians who bear witness to those widening disparities and inequities, we have a responsibility to advocate for policies that can improve the health of all children. Gun violence is the second leading cause of death in the United States and is associated with increasing critical care resource use, yet we do not have adequate funding for research about firearm safety and injury prevention. Poverty is a major social determinant of health for children and increases the utilization of pediatric critical care. Black children have an increased risk of complications and mortality following surgery, even if they were healthy prior to the procedure. Our patients under the age of 18 can’t vote—we can. As pediatric intensivists, we have a responsibility to ask candidates who are campaigning for office what they’ll do to improve the health of children. Then we must vote.

I took a typical route through medical school, residency, and sub-specialty training. I didn’t finish my pediatric critical care training until I was 32. I moved back to my home state and, within a year, began a serious relationship. Like many others my age, I had not really talked about fertility preservation at that time.

I am sharing my story because infertility planning is not discussed with women or men in medicine. Yet our careers lead us to paths where many do not start families until four years after the average age of the general population (3). I would encourage training programs, including medical schools, residencies, and fellowships, to incorporate fertility preservation information in their available resources. Insurance packages should be transparent about their coverage of fertility preservation. This is not only true for our trainees, but also for our faculty.