It was a rainy week.
November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month.
November 20th, Pancreatic Cancer Day, always lands heavily for me.
Every time I drive to the hospital, I think of my mother.
Of what we did for her.
Of what we couldn’t.
Grief sits beside me on the drive, a quiet companion that makes me reflective, tender, and even more human.
I park in the garage.
Walk down the stairs.
Step into the hospital hallways.
Pass the walls filled with donor names.
Pass the very spot where my mother and I once waited for her first, and in retrospect, unfortunately, only paracentesis.
I can still see her face.
Her tears.
The fear in her eyes.
I wish I could hug her again.
So I do, in spirit. She is always with me.
I continue to my office.
Open the door, turn around, and notice a small sign on the wall:
“Gather here with warm hearts.”
A simple Thanksgiving message with pumpkins and autumn colors, yet it stopped me in my tracks.
I smiled.
I breathed.
And in that brief moment, I felt a sense of gratitude.
Gratitude for being here.
Gratitude for beginning another hospital shift where I can use every skill, every lesson, every ounce of knowledge to help someone heal.
Gratitude for the privilege of making a difference, one patient at a time.
As I embraced the positivity of that wall sign, another phrase came to mind:
Gather here with grateful hearts.
Because medicine is the greatest team sport I know.
None of us heals alone.
Doctors, nurses, allied health staff, laboratory technicians, environmental services, and administrative teams, we are all connected.
Even within medicine itself, our work is interwoven: hospitalists, ER physicians, radiologists, pathologists, and every medical and surgical subspecialist, from cardiology and pulmonology to orthopedics, neurosurgery, bariatrics, infectious diseases, GI, and beyond.
Our work is fast, complex, dynamic, and human.
And this is exactly where our worlds meet.
At Indelible Learning, we build innovative educational technology for health, science, and civics, programs designed to elevate learning, empower gifted and curious minds, and use technology to inspire career discovery and healthier, happier future adults. That work is different from hospital medicine, yet the spirit is the same.
Just like in the hospital, nothing extraordinary happens in isolation.
To create meaningful Ed Tech, we need visionaries, researchers, grant writers, managers, engineers, artists, 3D and 2D creators, animators, QA testers, subject-matter experts, and innovators willing to imagine what does not yet exist.
Medicine taught me how to lead in complexity.
Ed Tech gives me a canvas to shape the future.
Both roles ask for the same thing:
Warm hearts. Grateful hearts. And the determination to make life better for someone else.
On rainy days, on hard days, on days when memories feel heavy, I return to these small signs and powerful messages.
Gather here with warm hearts.
Gather here with grateful hearts.
Yes.
That is the work.
That is the mission.
In the hospital.
In our classrooms.
In our digital programs.
In our games and innovations.
And in every future we are trying to build.
Dr. Jasminka Vukanovic-Criley MD, FACP, FHM is a multiple award-winning physician, internist, hospitalist, healthcare & education innovator & Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCLA. She is a career mentor & advisor to numerous undergraduate, graduate & postgraduate students & faculty. As a researcher, Dr. Criley received awards from the National Institutes of Health & the U.S. Department of Education Her work focuses on creating research-driven #edtech games & digital media to improve health, civics, science education & promote healthy habits. Dr Criley is also a sought-after speaker & a founding Board member of Physician’s Weekly. She can be reached on X at @criley_md and at www.linkedin.com/in/jasminka-criley-md