By JULIA MEADE 

One of my favorite aspects of working at Pitt is the wonderful people I have met. The year I graduated from my pediatric neuro-oncology fellowship, the job market was quite competitive and there wasn’t a need for an additional neuro-oncologist at Children’s Hospital. However, my division chief at the time, Linda McAllister-Lucas, saw something special in me and asked me if I would take over the pediatric cancer predisposition program, which was in its infancy at the time. I felt wholly unprepared, but jumped in nonetheless. 

This is when I met Elena Kessler. Elena was a genetic counselor at the University of Pittsburgh and co-founded the pediatric cancer predisposition program. She took me completely under her wing and taught me so much. She is also an avid gardener. 

For a long time, I highly disliked gardening. It took me back to my Iowa childhood, growing hot, woody radishes, making watermelon rind pickles and corn cob jelly (seriously people, these are real foods!). But Elena insisted I try growing something. My first year, I grew two tomato plants — it was easy and delicious.  

I decided to scale up and by my third year, I had put 10 four-foot-by-four-foot garden beds in my yard. Now that its high summer, my garden is a complete jungle. I have flowers growing between garlic, some weeds popping out between tomato plants, potatoes rising like zombies out of every garden bed. It is a total mess. No beautiful, neat rows, perfect carrots, and glossy zucchini.  

But you know what — I like it. My job, just like yours, has the potential for lots of stress and I feel the weight of what we are all trying to accomplish here at Pitt. Now, if my radishes are woody, I don’t have to eat them, I just let them turn into seeds. Seeds I can give away so others can enjoy gardening. If my zucchini plants are afflicted by powdery mildew and die, it’s a blessing, not a personal failure. There are only so many ways to eat zucchini, trust me. 

One of my favorite narrative medicine pieces was written by Joe Simone, director of the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, who put down his universal truths of academic medical centers into a piece titled “Simone’s Maxims.”  

The first one is, “Institutions Don’t Love You Back.” He reminds us, “institutional relationships are really with persons, who can and sometimes do love you back.” I hope that you have found or will find people at Pitt that you share a genuine connection with, who help you grow both personally and professionally. Though both Elena and Linda have moved on from Pitt, they have inspired me to try new things (even if they are scary) and not to be afraid of the jungle out there. 

If you have a good zucchini recipe, send it to me at jcm154@pitt.edu! 

Julia Meade is the vice president of the University Senate. She is an associate professor of pediatrics in the School of Medicine and a pediatric neuro-oncologist at Children’s Hospital.