Kandice Roberts knew when she was in grade school that she would go into medicine. As the first person in her family on both sides to attend medical school, she was inspired by her brother Jared, who very shortly after birth, started getting sick.
“He had pneumonia I think nine times by the age of four,” she said. “Later we found out he had common variable immune deficiency.”
She remembers having a conversation with her dad when she was about 10 years old, before her brother had been diagnosed. Her dad told her if she worked hard enough she could do anything she wanted with her life. “He just casually mentioned I could even become a doctor and help people like Jared,” she said. “Right then, it was like a switch flipped inside of me and I knew that’s how I wanted to spend the rest of my life.”
