I realized in order to be involved in health policy, you really had to understand more than the individual patient that we as physicians, are taught to think about.

I think the house call is one of the ways I get an insight into the ways in which people live and the importance of environment in keeping people healthy.

I grew up with a lot of dinner table conversations about health care and ways in which the system was inadequate for the needs of many of the patients they took care of.

I had an interest in health policy and a realization that, as an academic physician, one of the things you're always looking to do is to have your clinical interests and your scholarly interests overlap and reinforce one another.

I realize there are few sectors that can do what philanthropy does, which is look at big problems, take a long term view, try to develop strategies for addressing the root causes and then go about solving them.

Be persistent. Understand the ways in which your hard work is going to be necessary to achieve the goals that you want.

It is a proud moment when you can define a problem and make a commitment and begin to see a groundswell of activity towards addressing what has the potential to change the life trajectory of millions of kids.