How fortunate we are to have Lisa Sudmeier, MD, PhD, record her story for this episode of the HMO Wellness Our Stories podcast. To kick of the podcast Dr Sudmeier shares how her mom’s work as a nurse, and the appreciation patients had for the work her mom did, inspired her to go into health care. Great mentors in training at Wash U in St Louis and then in Wisconsin (her home state) encouraged Dr Sudmeier to follow her interest in both science and patient care where she felt she could have the broadest impact on the cancer fight. Persisting in the research space has been difficult, especially given the time and cost of high quality research, but Dr Sudmeier’s commitment to “moving forward with making human life better,” and having “fantastic” colleagues and trainees to mentor, makes the hard work worthwhile. Dr Sudmeier feels so confident in the treatments available at Winship, that when her father needed cancer care, she had him come here to WCI (recording unfortunately missed this remark). Many thanks to Dr Sudmeier for persisting in the difficult space of research which is so vital to patients and families dealing with cancer!