Growing up in Germany my dream was to become a priest. A serious childhood illness with a year-long hospital stay changed this plan. Instead, I became a physician trained in pediatrics and medical genetics and worked for over three decades at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the National Institutes of Health, and the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics. Accompanying families who have a child with a physical and/or intellectual disability has been the most rewarding part of my professional life.

The vocation to the priesthood came again while on a pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago in Spain, followed by two years of discernment.  I am full of gratitude to Cardinal Seán O’Malley, Father Brian Kiely, and Father Eric Cadin who accepted me as a seminarian into Pope St. John XXIII and the Archdiocese of Boston.