The Distance Between the Plan and the Path

Elise Barrow had it mapped out: Johns Hopkins, medical school, doctor. Her father held a PhD; college was never a question, and medicine was the destination.

Her first semester didn't change the direction so much as the certainty. She moved from biology to public health, concentrated in international health and psychology, and finished in four years, because that's simply what you did.

What came next was a career built on adaptation. Two years at the D.C. Health Department doing community health outreach through the anthrax scare and the Beltway sniper crisis. An MPH at NYU. Work at the New York City Department of Health on breastfeeding and prenatal care initiatives. Then Mount Sinai and the National Children's Study, an ambitious 21-year, NIH-funded longitudinal study tracking environmental exposures in women and children.

Today she manages interventional trials in women's oncology, doing the kind of science that finally makes sense of everything she learned at 18 but couldn't absorb yet.

In this episode, Elise reflects on the cost of rigid timelines, what she wishes she'd told her 18-year-old self, and why she's raising her own kids with an entirely different message about time, exploration, and what you're allowed to become.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I work very closely with doctors and I know I couldn't be a doctor. This is where I was supposed to be. I wish it had been something that I had hit on earlier in my life, but I had to learn the things that I was good at and that I'm not good at. The only way that you can do that is through trial and error, going through one thing and realizing, nope, that's not for me. I don't know if I would have been able to hit on that without going through the paths that I did.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Hi everyone, and welcome to Pathfound, the podcast about the real, messy, unexpected journeys that lead us to the work we love. I'm Monica Argandonia, and every week I talk with someone whose story proves there's no single right way to build a meaningful life. Elise Burrow did everything right. Private schools, lots of science and AP exams, Johns Hopkins University, pre-med. She had a plan. Then college hit and the plan didn't. What does it mean to follow the plan and then realize it was never quite yours to begin with? Elise is a public health professional whose career has moved through the DC Health Department, NYU, Mount Sinai, and now clinical research in women's oncology. She came to college certain she was going to medical school. She didn't. And somewhere in the distance between that original destination and where she actually landed, she found work that fits her in a way pre-med never did. This is her path. I'm excited to kind of see what your career journey has, where it's brought you all these years. So, like I start with everybody, if you could just go back, you know, school, elementary school, high school, what kind of kid were you? What were you thinking back then, where you would end up?

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Yeah, sure. So thank you so much for contacting me and having me on the podcast. I'm really excited to kind of share where I came from and where I am and where I think I'm going. Who knows? Well, for me, I was a studious kid in elementary school, went to Catholic elementary school, Catholic all-girls school, private university, private grad school. Always thought I wanted to be a doctor. Clearly not that place right now, but I was always into science and just exploring how things kind of work in like human science realms, not necessarily environmental science. But I'd always loved that. So elementary school science was my biggest subject in high school. I took all the sciences I could, took, you know, advanced placement exams, didn't do so well on those, but I think there's a lot of reasons why that is. I think it has to do with the exams and how we teach kids. And we're not evolved yet to where we're teaching kids the right things in elementary school or in high school. We're still not there. We're still not there. I think it's gotten worse. Now having kids, it's gotten worse how we're teaching kids. But went got into Johns Hopkins' early decision, and that was where I wanted to go. So I went there and I said, I'm going there because my plan is I'm gonna be pre-med, a biology major, I'm going to go to medical school after that, and I am going to be in GYN. That was my plan and my goal.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Had your parents, I assume they were supportive, but did they go to college? How did you get on that track?

SPEAKER_01 3:18

My father had a PhD and was very, again, studious, but he worked when we lived in California, he was working at Charles Drew, which I know from many people is no longer Charles Drew, but he worked there in IT and in computers, at you know, when the dawn of like that being part of education was there. My mom was working at Security Pacific, which it was a bank, a national bank at the time. And so, yeah, they were very supportive. They were both college graduates, and of course, my father at PhD. So it was just ingrained in us, me and my brothers, that you know, education was the route that you had to go. We are immigrant family, and so that was always held as the highest regard. Like you needed to go to school. There was never a question about after high school where you were gonna go. There was no idea of a gap year, anything like that. It was right after high school that fall, you're gonna be in college somewhere, and that was where you were gonna go. And, you know, we of course believed that, and we still believe that. And it's a different time now, but that's where we were gonna go. And so when I started college, everybody was supportive. My my mom was supportive. By that time, my father had died, so but I know that he was supportive even prior to that. And so my mom put me on a plane and shipped me to the East Coast. And I came here all wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, thinking, yeah, you know, I'm gonna ace all my classes, I'm gonna be great because I'm one of the top in my high school class and it's gonna be easy and it's gonna be a cakewalk. And the first semester of college slapped me in the face and told me it is not gonna be a cakewalk. And I had to reassess my goals at that point in time. I still had the want to be a doctor. I didn't have the grades to be a doctor. And now I think about it with my college student child thinking that at 18 making somebody make the decision of what they're gonna be for the rest of their lives is insane. And I would not wish that upon anybody. I don't even wish that upon my high schooler or and my college kids. But college was a great eye-opening experience for me. I got to explore a lot of different things, but still kept in the realm of science and healthcare and medicine, mainly because I knew that I I wanted to see if I could come back to it. I didn't eventually come back to the concept of medical school, even though now every once in a while I think, oh, I could be a nurse, still can't do it. That's mainly a time thing. But, you know, college was college. It was four years of stress. I did it in four years, which was always my goal and always kind of ingrained in me that there was never gonna be a fifth year or a sixth year or coming back to it and or stopping and starting.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Was that because of how your parents had said you were gonna go to college right away and finish? Did you ever think maybe I just need to leave this university? Maybe I need to change majors and fields?

SPEAKER_01 6:18

I think it was that you were expected to finish in four years. Like, even if that four years was the worst four years of your life, you were expected to finish in four years. There was never a like, oh, take your time kind of thing. And changing majors, yes, was something that I eventually did do, but changing field was not something that was really encouraged because I had spent so much time and money and brain power on this field of medicine or science. It was like, you're 21, you can't change that. That's what your life is going to be for the rest of your years. So I stayed within healthcare and I switched from being a biology major to being a public health major. And my major was public health at a time when most schools didn't offer public health as a bachelor's degree. Hopkins was one of the first, so that was great. I majored in, uh concentrated in international health and psychology. International health because I loved it and I thought I was gonna go abroad and live in various places and be a pioneer that way. And psychology mainly because I had a lot of psychology credits. And so I was like, well, if I can get a concentration and a minor in this, why not? So I learned a lot because I was able to take classes with graduate students in public health, and I found my niche that way. So it allowed me to stay related to healthcare, but not necessarily doing the things that were going to get me to medical school. And that was great. So I graduated in four years, and at that point, my roommate and I, she was also a public health major. She was able to get into, no, she didn't get into graduate school immediately. We both said, okay, for two years we needed to work. Because even though I had worked in college, graduate schools weren't taking master's candidates right out of college. So I said, okay, I'm gonna get a job. And I got a job at the DC Health Department, thinking I would go to the D.C. Health Department, apply to Hopkins, get in because why not? I'm amazing, and then go back to Baltimore. Well, I worked at the D.C. Health Department and it was also illuminating. I love DC. It's a great city. I think if I didn't live in New York, I'd live there, definitely. And I worked in DC. I first started out just talking to people at like senior centers about breast cancer and cervical cancer screening, and that kind of kept me in the realm of women and children. Then I started doing kind of statistical work and work with trying to get stats out to regular people in the community so that they could use that to kind of fuel either their knowledge, but also their need to access healthcare or to do early screenings and things like that. And I worked with a person who she was great. She was a wonderful boss, taught me a lot, was really supportive about me wanting to go to graduate school, and really kind of took me under her wing for the two years that I was there. And I just worked all around D.C. I would visit St. Elizabeth's where the attempted assassin of Ronald Reagan used to live. He doesn't live there anymore. And I'd see how patients were treated there, but also how the infrastructure around healthcare was deteriorating, especially in DC. I was in DC during the sniper situation. I was there during the anthrax scare, and I worked at what was then a closed hospital, DC General, which was their only really public hospital, helping postal workers and other people that had been exposed to the anthrax mail situation to get care and to, you know, talk about what this looked like for them and what they needed to do to take care of themselves and to reduce exposure. And again, I saw how the infrastructure of healthcare was kind of just falling apart, but also falling apart in cities where you have predominantly minority populations. And in DC, you know, they have very little power over themselves. So it was just a really interesting time to be there. And after that, I applied to graduate school because I knew that my plan was always two years. And I think again, it was being rigid with like college in four years. There's no plan to be there for five or even four and a half years. You're when you walk, you're walking. My plan was to be working in DC for two years. I did my two years, and at that two-year mark, I knew that I was going to be moving somewhere for graduate school. So at that point, I had applied to graduate school and I didn't get into Hopkins. It's still there loss. I got into NYU and I said, I'm going to come to New York for two years, do my two years and then leave. And I came to New York and through, you know, personal changes and things like that, I stayed. I went to NYU and again I was in public health there. So I have a master's in public health. And again, I learned a lot, but still not exactly the things that I've learned since being out in the public health field. At that point, I majored in or concentrated in community health. So I was no longer thinking international work. I was thinking more domestic work. And, you know, I learned a lot. I worked at the health department in New York, and I worked on a lot of different projects that were related to breastfeeding, early prenatal care. Again, working with a doctor who really wanted to elevate stats and data to have programs that followed that data. So a lot of the things that they do in the public hospitals around like breastfeeding and early prenatal care here in New York grew out of my work with the health department and the health department initiatives at the time. I still evolved if we're thinking about what the evolution is in terms of schooling and going off into the world. You know, medical school was not coming back. It was not something that was ever going to come back to me at this point. And so I kind of pivoted and just took jobs that had a focus on women and children and allowed me to kind of explore the health of women and children in one way or another. And I hit on research as that way to do it. And so I worked on the National Children's Study when I went to Mount Sinai, which was a multi-center study that was funded by NIH. And it was an environmental study, really. One of the people that kind of spearheaded it, he was my division director. And he was working with Francis Collins, who was at the NIH at the time, to create this 21-year longitudinal study. We wanted to enroll women all around the country in different communities to follow them prior to getting pregnant, and then following them during their pregnancies during this 21-year span and following their children during that period of time to find out what environmental exposures they had, what socioeconomic exposures or non-exposures did they have, what issues did they have and their outcomes. It was really highly ambitious and it was a money suck. And the feds eventually said this way of doing on-the-ground research is not cost effective. Now, so many years later, 10 years later, I realized, yeah, it was not a cost effective way of going about doing that kind of research. And there are different ways to do it, but it taught me a lot about research and what I loved about public health and working with women and children. And that's flowed through everything that I do now, which is really concentrating on interventional trials. So a lot of cancer trials with drug companies, but also just studies about the health of women. Usually it has to do with like GYN or OB specific issues. And right now I'm working on a lot of studies that have to do with ovarian endometrial cervical cancer and how we can help with early screening and early education, both in men and women, but also when women develop these types of cancers looking at different drugs and how they work on the biologic level to kill cancer or keep cancer at bay. And so now that's where I think, gosh, I could really go to medical school because all the science on all the stuff that I learned then that I could not compute then, it somewhat computes now. So, you know, like all that chemistry stuff, it makes sense now. Learning it at 18, it made no sense. But now at, you know, 46, it makes more sense. But, you know, that's where I am. That's my journey.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

But you wouldn't go back to medical school now.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

No, mainly because I'd have to take like half of my undergrad stuff over again. So that would be another two years to do that. Then I'd have to apply and, you know, do the medical the MCAT and all that kind of stuff. And at my age, I feel like, you know, I have kids that are in high school, in college, in elementary school, and to take that time to do that for myself would be great. But by the time I actually got the earning power of what I have now, like I'd be like 75. And then who wants a 75-year-old resident doctor? No one wants that.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

So you you stayed on a path, right? You always wanted to go and into this specific field. It wasn't you didn't become a doctor or nurse, but do you feel like you achieved the goals that you had originally set out for? Like this ended up being okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely okay. I there are days when I end the day and I work very closely with doctors, and I know I couldn't be a doctor. So this is where I was supposed to be. I wish it had been something that I had hit on earlier in my life to think about that, but I don't know if I would have been able to hit on that without going through the paths that I did. I had to learn the things that were not good and the things that were good and that I was good at and that I'm not good at. And the only way that you can do that is through trial and error, going through one thing and realizing nope, that's not for me. So that's why I know that I'm not going back to medical school, but I work very closely with doctors. I understand how they think, how they talk, and how they work with patients. And so a lot of that I incorporated into my own life, my personal life, so that when I go to the doctor with my kids, I can advocate for my kids and not from the standpoint of somebody who's Googled things and said, Oh, I saw online that this new vitamin is really important for five-year-olds, and I'm not going to vaccinate my kids because of this science or that science. I accept the science that's out there because I work in the science field, but I can advocate and speak in a way to nurses, doctors, PAs, and Ps that signals to them that I'm not somebody to be like messed with, but also that I'm knowledgeable and I'm also willing to take their knowledge and incorporate that into what I'm doing and what I'm advocating for with my kids, with my health, and with the health of those around me. So I don't think I would have been able to do that without going through all of the things that I've gone through and ended on the path that I'm on right now.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

So you mentioned, you know, earlier the idea of an 18-year-old having to decide what they want to do. And I absolutely agree. All the things you just said, knowing what you're good at, what you're not good at, what's even out there? The pressure and expectations at that age is ridiculous. Now, part of it is financial, right? So you gotta go to college and finish as quickly as possible because it costs money. And not everybody has the luxury to, you know, stay as long as they want or do whatever. But what are you telling your kids? And what do you what would you tell someone at 18 going off to college? What advice would you give that person?

SPEAKER_01 18:27

So I've had to give this advice because I had a an 18-year-old who just finished her first year. And I have become a person who, having gone through the process, I want my kids to be happy with whatever they choose, to not have to necessarily choose something that is the incredible moneymaker, that they have a safety net under them. And that's not something that everybody always has. And I think when I was going to college, it wasn't that I didn't have a safety net. Because if I came out of college and I didn't have a job, I knew that I could depend on my family to help me. But it wasn't like if you come out of college, you can move back in and hang out and do something like hippy-dippy and arty and farty and you know, very soft. And it had to be something like you're a lawyer, you're a doctor, you're an engineer, you know, something like in that realm. And if you were on that path, then that's okay. But with my kids and with people of today, I say to my kids, I say, go out and do what you want to do right now. Doesn't mean that it has to be what you're gonna end up doing for the future, and that's okay. And I'm supportive of whatever you want to do. You just have to be doing something. Like sitting around and saying, woe is me, nothing's coming to me. I can't get on board with that. But if you're sitting at home and you're making strides to make sure that something happens for you, I'm willing to support that until it happens. So supporting that. My children are not gonna be doctors or scientists or engineers, which my public health heart hurts because I wanted one, at least one scientific child. But I have artsy children and, you know, no braggies. They're pretty amazing. I have a painter, I have another child who does a lot of like characters and character development, but draws, you know, digital drawings and things like that. So we know that, you know, they're not gonna be the moneymaker because they're not gonna be the Michelangelo until further on down the line. But I support them putting something into the world that is genuinely them and that they will genuinely feel good about leaving when it's all done and said and done. Whether they stay in that, I also don't care. I want them to do what makes them feel happy now. And then if that involves a pivot 10 years from now and they're doing something completely different, that's fine too. Because I think during this period of time, that 18, 19, 20, 21-year-old period is such a an interesting time of growth that I want them to be able to embrace that and do what makes them feel happy at 18 and know that it doesn't have to be the same thing at 28. And and it may not be the same thing at 28 for various reasons, and that is okay. So that's what I kind of instill in my kids, and I hope that they listen to this later on and hear that and understand that I'm here to support them. They're not getting kicked out, you know, on their butts. They have a safety net under them for as long as they need, and that they should develop the talents that they have rather than trying to fit into a box of four years for college, two years for work, two years for grad school, and then your work life after that. I want them to travel. I encourage my kids to travel even now. Go explore the world, go and do a semester abroad, learn a new language, go to classes in culinary school in another country. You know, I want them to do those things. I think those all speak to their talents, but also helps them become better citizens in the world and know what they want to do, experiencing it, so that when they eventually hit on something, they know that, yeah, I've experienced a lot of other things and this is definitely it.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Right. One of the other things you mentioned is, you know, back in the day, a lot of these graduate programs wouldn't take students right out of undergrad. And it seems that's shifted. I know there are public university systems who are actually making it easier for students. You can stay an extra year and we'll double count and you we'll make it streamlined so you can get a master's. There are so many different master's programs now, online and you know, in all these things. And I always tell students, wait, don't you don't know yet what you want that degree in, and it's time and it's money, and it's not going to get you the better job right off the bat. You still need experience. And even for you, you took two years, you still went into public health. I mean, what do you think about, you know, that? Should you even have done it then? Should you even have waited longer? I mean, what do you think about kind of this trend of it seems like master's programs now are just an extension of an undergrad program and people think that they have to have them?

SPEAKER_01 23:19

I definitely think I should have taken longer to kind of explore the world and explore myself and what I was interested in. I mean, I still came back to public health, so I knew that's where I wanted to go. But I think had I done more time exploring, I probably would have like traveled more and I may not have even ended up staying in the United States because I see that there are a lot of things that are international that I like to do, and that would be interesting. Had I taken the time and not settled into something, I probably would have maybe been a, you know, person with just a suitcase and like a passport, traveled a lot, learned a lot, and then come back to the States maybe now, 20 years later, and decided to, you know, use my experience to get a job that, you know, kept me here and in one spot. So yeah, maybe waiting, I think, is a really good idea for a lot of people. Because even when you're 21, like I see 21-year-olds now, and I'm like, no, I don't want you to have the power to do certain things that I did at 21. Because I think you can mess up your own life, but also you just it's too much. It's too much. And because we live so long, so now you know we have people that are living into their 90s and to, you know, well into centenarian kind of people, you had the power to do crazy things at 21 that somebody who was 21 but was gonna die at 30 because that was the lifespan. It made sense for that person to do that at 21. But somebody who's 21 and it's gonna definitely live another 80 years. Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

I tell anybody, why would you want to get married in your 20s when people live to be 80? That's a long time. Like it was okay when you died at 45.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Yeah. And you know, I mean, I did get married in my 20s, but again, that was like the expectation. That's what you did. But now that I see people who are getting married or who are 25 when I got married, holy hell, no, like no. Like the maturity level is just not there. And but I think it's also because like had I not gotten married at 25, again, I'd be traveling, I'd be doing other things that would have given me a different sense of the world. I mean, I still travel now, but it there's a different way of traveling when you're attached to people than when you're just by yourself, which is totally fine. But yeah, I think waiting, seeing the world a little bit, exploring things, being willing to make changes that maybe complete 180s from where you are is really important. Not feeling like you have to make a decision about what the next 80 years of your life is going to be at 21 is really important to know. I do think the education system helps with that a little bit, but like I mentioned earlier, like at least in elementary school and high school, we're teaching kids some things, but not teaching them other things that I think will serve them much better when they get out into college and into the real world. We're not teaching certain things or teaching like stressing math and science and all of those things and English and tech, but we're not teaching like my kids don't know how to write a formal letter. They don't know how to write an email to to respond to people that doesn't use like emojis or you know, abbreviations. Those are skills that I hope we don't lose, but we're not also teaching them. And it becomes difficult.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Right. And I get an email from a student that I have never met, and it's like, hey, oh my god, I've gotten those. Can you help me with this?

SPEAKER_01 26:57

There's no introduction, no like No, I got an email from somebody who wanted a job for me. He was a really good candidate, loved him during his interview, and it was during like the Zoom interview period, and as we offered him the job, whatever, and then he sent me an email later on saying exactly that. He said, Hey, Elise, and I was like, No, you don't know me. So you start out with dear Ms. Barrow, you know, like you start out that way. And then once that person has given you license to talk to and speak to them in more of a colloquial way, then that's fine. But yeah, like, hey, no. And so I've had to teach my kids like, no, you don't start an email that way. You don't even start a text message that way with somebody who you've never met. And those are skills I think that are getting lost in the shuffle.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

Right. And just, you know, I always tell all this, all my students, after an interview, send a thank you. Yes. It's so simple, it doesn't take much time. Send a thank you. If you meet somebody at a networking event and you've just gotten their email, send an email immediately. Say thanks so much for talking with me and taking the time. A thank you goes a long way.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Those are the people that I remember.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

I know. And we I don't know why where that got lost, but I'm out there telling them, Elise. I'm out there.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Good, good. Teach them well. And I will also teach the ones that are younger than that as well, the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

All right. So one more question. Knowing all that you know now, what would you go back and tell your 18-year-old self?

SPEAKER_01 28:29

I would tell my 18-year-old self, it's okay to not follow what everybody says that you needed to do in a time frame that society or somebody else has set for you. So if you want to take that year to explore the world, take that year and explore the world, go and do that, Elise. Go and do that. Or maybe science isn't for you, Elise. There are so many other interesting things out there. Go and learn those things before you commit to anything. But I would also tell 18-year-old me or 18-year-old somebody else, what you decide today is not what you have to be in 20 years. And that's wonderful. That's a good thing that you can live in a world, no matter where you live, that you can say at 18, the decisions that I make or that are made for me, I don't have to keep on that path. And that's important.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

That's great. Thank you so much, Elise. I appreciate all of that and all that advice. Thank you, Dr. Monica Argandonia. Thank you so much for listening to Pathfound. If anything we talked about today connected with you or gave you a new perspective, we'd love it if you subscribed, left a review, or shared the episode with someone you care about. You can also find us on Instagram at Pathfound Podcast. To explore more stories, resources, and ways to get involved, visit Keystoneetwork.org. This podcast is just one part of the journey. A Keystone Network, we're helping young people and anyone figuring it out as they go build meaningful futures one step at a time. A huge thank you to my podcast editor, David Strut. You can find him on LinkedIn for helping bring these stories to life, and to Elizabeth Minor at Silvermine Creative for the beautiful artwork and web design. And if you're on your own path, navigating the unknown, making a pivot, or simply figuring it out as you go, just know you're not alone. The route may not be linear, but there's always a way forward. I'm Monica Argandonia, and I'll see you next time on Path Found.