"The most challenging experience I had during medical training was when I was doing my emergency department rotation. We were notified that Life Flight was coming in with an 18 to 20 year-old-female with major trauma from a motor vehicle crash into the back of a tractor-trailer at a high rate of speed. When the patient came in unconscious and covered in blood, she was unrecognizable. As I was helping the attending with the patient's airway, I realized the patient was my younger sister. I immediately told the physician that the patient was my sister and asked if I could remove myself from the room to call my parents. I was granted permission and had to make the difficult call to my parents, who live eight hours away. I helped my parents find and book the next flight out and returned to be with my sister. She had been rushed to surgery and survived her injuries, but she now has paraplegia. That was most definitely the most challenging experience during my training."
