Kind Alike to All
taken her to the desolate mountaintops of Kenya – helping families and other physicians provide care for the youngest generation of children. Along the way, Alison has been nurtured in her career and has planted the seeds within others in hopes of creating a better environment for critical care for children around the world. From the age of six, Alison always knew she would become a physician. She came into the world with two club feet and she underwent many surgeries at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis, Indiana, before she turned five. Though there were no physicians in her family, the care she received at such a young age inspired her to seek out medicine and children as a profession. “When I was young, I always said I wanted to be a doctor for kids, and a firefighter on the weekend,” Alison notes. “Which is funny, as I do actually put out small fires in the ER!”
Critical Care, Worlds Away Dr. Alison Held Gardner is helping train the next generation of young Kenyan doctors and providing critical care for children across the globe. By Director of Public Relations Jason Paul Gomez “I’m the doctor that no one wants to see. No one makes plans to see an emergency room pediatrician. There’s a lot of fear involved when I meet patients and their families, but it’s my job to gain trust through their fear.” The journey taken by Dr. Alison Held Gardner, Purdue, would be considered far from typical. Her path as a pediatric emergency physician began in her earliest years as a young patient and has
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The Trident Fall 2019
The path to becoming a M.D. was a driving force throughout her time at Purdue University, and she was supported by her Tri Delta sisters in Gamma Iota Chapter. “Much of my time was dedicated to studying and preparing to take the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test), so I had to sacrifice a lot of the social aspects of Tri Delta to go after my dreams,” She said. To this day, she still has all the signs her sisters placed around the chapter house saying, “Good Luck, Dr. Alison” and “Congrats Dr. Held!” Her Tri Delta support system nurtured her in a family atmosphere – which would become an integral part of her practice as a pediatric physician. This support inspired how she works with families as a team to care for a child and walk alongside them at the beginning of their journey of life. Following her pediatric residency, Alison returned for a fellowship to become more specialized in emergency medicine, requiring three more years of education. Her work in the ER allowed her to develop new skill sets. “For every subset of medicine and disease, there is a pediatric corollary. You have to like to think fast and have a gift to manage and organize chaos.” The transition to emergency pediatrics also required Alison to make some professional sacrifices. “Part of being in the ER is that you don’t have the gradual relationship building you do with patients and families when in private practice,” Alison said. “Sometimes, in this role you are with parents at a critical junction, and you step into that journey with them on the river of life and help navigate that passage.”
Photo, this page: Cameron Davis/ WFBMC Creative Communications
