It was 3 o’clock in the morning, July 1989. I was working in the emergency room, struggling to repair a large laceration on a patient’s face. My hands fumbled. In that one terrifying moment, I realized that I could not finish the job. My hands were swollen and painful due to rheumatoid arthritis. I was diagnosed in 1987. The progression had been assiduous but progressive.

Many mornings I woke up with a level of pain that defied explanation. But at that moment, I had a job to do. I gritted my teeth and finally finished the closure of the patient’s laceration, and assured its quality. But the moment of pain had shaken me to the core. I doubted whether I would be able to have a lifelong career.

It was at that moment that my reinvention really began.

Throughout life, it is necessary to pivot and reinvent ourselves due to our rapidly changing world. Very few people work at the same place their entire lives and receive a gold watch at the end of their career. I had dreamed about spending my entire life providing care to an underserved population. Several months followed that episode, where a rheumatologist at Mayo Clinic told me that I would likely be disabled and unable to work within ten years. So I made the decision to explore what my future could entail.

I volunteered to teach local EMTs clinical skills. I realized very quickly that I had a passion for teaching others. In 1991, I entered my academic career. I vastly surpassed my prognosis provided, I was able to practice as a PA for 20 years.

I continued to reinvent myself in the academic world to the completion of my advanced degrees, including my PhD. I explored new worlds of research and publication as additional avenues to contribute to my profession. After 25 years in PA education, the trajectory toward retirement seemed safe and secure. I began to realize that I had something more to contribute. I believed I had something unique to contribute as an entrepreneur. I conceptualized how research, education, and leadership could coalesce together and provide exemplary consulting for PA programs.

Reinvention for me was a way of continuously growing and contributing in new and different ways. I also came to realize that our experiences can contribute to something new and exciting. In my case, learning about becoming an entrepreneur opened new and unfamiliar territory in terms of marketing my breakthrough ideas and standing out from the myriad of other consultants in education.

As I recall that fateful day in 1989, I realize that the resilience and courage to pivot and re-envision what my future could entail was an attribute that all of us possess. All we must do is listen to our intuition and realize that we possess talents and abilities, although yet untapped, that can open new opportunities that hold no boundaries.