I was fairly certain in medical school that I wanted research to be part of how I spent my time as a physician. Along the way, in medical school and residency, I actively sought out opportunities to develop new research skills and pursue projects that would enable that goal. I was fortunate in residency to get early protected research time through a foundation grant that started right after residency when I was a new assistant professor. I originally thought I would work with big data from electronic medical records (EMRs) or public datasets and primarily conduct observational studies. I had a big change in direction about 1.5 years into my faculty position when I had an idea around detecting opioid overdoses. In hindsight, this idea profoundly changed the course of my career.
