Guest Writer - My Daughter, Liz

I've neglected updating my blog for several months. All is well and I hope to write and update soon. Meanwhile, my daughter, Liz, was asked to prepare a 20-minute talk that would highlight how her life events contributed to the career she has now. She sent me her proposed talk on Mother's Day, and I couldn't be more proud. She gave me permission to share it with you. Enjoy.

Strategy, Soul and the Permission to Pivot (A story of burnout, growth, and permission to redesign a career from the inside) 

by Elizabeth A. Varga
 

I want to tell you the story of a girl with brown hair, scrawny legs, and coke bottle glasses. A girl with a big heart and huge smile. She found fascination early — intrigued by people, society, and the why behind things.

Even though her parents divorced when she was one, she never felt deprived of love. Her mother jokes that people constantly told her, “Put down that baby!” warning that holding her too much would make her spoiled and dependent.

But my mom refused to listen.

With her background in early childhood education, she believed closeness and love created confidence and independence, not the opposite. She nurtured curiosity constantly through science experiments at home, trips to COSI, and a life rich with experiences. She was always bringing home something unusual — Venus fly traps digesting bugs, terrariums, an albino rat. It was endless.

My stepfather expanded our world in different ways. He encouraged adventure. We went sailing, tent camping, road tripping. Sometimes we left for vacations with no fixed destination, confident we would figure it out as we went.

That lens of curiosity and discovery shaped me.

In high school, during an AP Biology field trip, a zoologist introduced us to the field of genetic counseling. I was immediately hooked. After majoring in biology in college, I pursued graduate training in genetic counseling because I loved that it combined science with people. It involved teaching, but also ethics, psychology, grief, uncertainty, and helping families navigate some of the hardest moments of their lives.

What I did not expect was how quickly the work would become personal.

The summer before graduate school, I learned I carried a genetic predisposition to blood clots due to a family history of clotting disorders. That experience suddenly shifted how I viewed genetics — no longer just academically, but personally. It also opened my eyes to how little support and education existed for many families navigating inherited conditions.

That realization shaped my early career and deepened my interest in patient advocacy.

I began working as a genetic counselor with women experiencing high-risk pregnancies. It was deeply meaningful and emotionally difficult work. We saw fetal loss, birth defects, uncertainty, and fear. I often walked into rooms carrying information that would permanently alter someone’s life.

Those years taught me something early: medicine is never just science. Humanity is always at the center.

Over time, my career evolved through clinical care, research, and program development roles in genetics and genomics. I worked with families searching for answers to rare and complex conditions, helped build clinical and research programs, and collaborated alongside physicians and scientists advancing precision medicine.

Some cases stayed with me forever.

I remember families searching for answers for years before advances in genomic sequencing finally gave them clarity. I remember parents carrying impossible uncertainty while still showing extraordinary resilience and love for their children. I remember moments where science mattered deeply — but human connection mattered just as much.

I loved the work.

But quietly, I was also struggling.

I worked long hours. The work was emotionally heavy and unpredictable. I had three young children at home and constantly felt pulled between responsibilities that both mattered deeply to me. Like many people in helping professions, I kept pushing through exhaustion for a long time before fully recognizing it as burnout.

So when an opportunity outside traditional healthcare presented itself — one offering flexibility, remote work, and a chance to explore a different side of the industry — I decided to take the leap.

In January 2020, I stepped away from hospital life after nearly fourteen years.

Saying goodbye was emotional. By that point, my work had expanded far beyond direct patient care into research leadership, program development, and national collaborations. I was proud of what we had built, but it was time to make a different choice for my family and myself.

At first, the transition felt exciting and energizing. I entered the business and technology side of healthcare, supporting organizations using emerging genomic technologies and AI-driven clinical tools. The work was fascinating, global, and intellectually stimulating.

And then, within weeks, the world shut down.

COVID changed everything.

Like so many people, we suddenly found ourselves navigating isolation, homeschooling, uncertainty, and fear all at once. Around the same time, my mother was diagnosed with cancer, adding another layer of emotional complexity to an already overwhelming season.

Professionally, I also began realizing something important: the role itself was not the right fit for me long term.

The farther I moved from direct connection to people and mission-driven work, the more I understood how much those things mattered to me. I missed collaboration. I missed meaning. I missed feeling connected to something deeply human.

I remember calling a trusted mentor, frustrated and uncertain about what came next. After listening patiently, she said something simple:

“Maybe this is just the wrong fit.”

That sentence cracked something open in me.

Because if this was the wrong fit… what was the right one?

For the first time in my life, I stopped asking only what I was good at and started asking a different question:

What kind of life actually aligned with who I was?

I hired a coach who guided me through deep reflection. We explored strengths assessments, career patterns, values, energy, motivation, and the environments where I felt most alive and effective.

The biggest realization surprised me.

Relationships mattered more to me than I had fully understood.

I needed meaningful connection. I needed purpose. I needed collaboration, humanity, and impact. I needed enough solitude to recharge, but not isolation.

And when I thought honestly about where I had felt most aligned, energized, and connected, the answer became clear.

I returned to Nationwide Children’s Hospital in 2021 in a new leadership role in translational genomics.

Coming back during that period was both meaningful and complex. Healthcare organizations were still navigating enormous operational and emotional strain following the pandemic, and rebuilding teams required resilience, patience, and trust. But returning also reconnected me to work that felt deeply aligned with my values.

Around that same time, I became involved in leadership development and mentoring programs that completely expanded how I thought about organizational systems, leadership, and my own future.

One leadership program in particular changed me profoundly. It exposed me to organizational strategy, executive leadership, systems thinking, and cross-functional problem solving in ways I had never experienced before. For the first time, I could clearly envision possibilities for myself beyond the traditional paths I had always known.

That experience eventually led me to pursue an Executive MBA.

At first, the idea felt impossible. The programs were expensive, demanding, and intimidating. But something in me kept pulling toward growth.

And somewhere during that process, my mindset shifted.

For so long, I had invested my energy into work, caregiving, supporting teams, supporting family, supporting everyone else’s growth.

For the first time, I realized I needed to invest in myself too.

Not just professionally, but personally.

The MBA experience stretched me in ways I never expected. It challenged how I thought about leadership, systems, communication, strategy, and influence. But maybe most importantly, it forced me to think deeply about identity.

Who was I becoming?

What kind of leader did I want to be?

What actually mattered to me?

Slowly, all the seemingly disconnected parts of my career started making sense together.

The little girl fascinated by people.

The genetic counselor helping families navigate devastating diagnoses.
The advocate.
The burned-out working mother trying to hold too much.
The leader trying to improve systems.
The person searching for meaning and alignment.

None of those versions of me were separate after all.

Today, I work in patient and family experience, and what I love most about this work is that it sits at the intersection of everything I care about: people, systems, communication, emotion, culture, and human connection.

Some people hear “patient experience” and think satisfaction scores.

But to me, experience is much bigger than that.

 It is asking:

What does it feel like to be here?

What does it feel like to be the parent receiving terrifying news?

The child lying in a hospital bed?
The exhausted nurse?
The physician trying to hold it together after another impossible day?

What does it feel like to be on the other side of us?

That question has become central to how I move through the world.

The science taught me to seek understanding.

Advocacy taught me to amplify voices.
Burnout taught me limits.
Leadership taught me systems matter.
Motherhood taught me that people do not need perfection nearly as much as they need presence, humanity, and care.

I used to think careers were linear. That you picked a lane and stayed in it.

But now I think life is more like those road trips I took as a kid:

    you follow curiosity,
    you adapt,
    you get lost sometimes,
    you discover things you never expected,
    and somehow the path still becomes your own.

And if there is one thing I hope people take from my story, it is this:

Pay attention to what lights you up.

Pay attention to what drains you.

Pay attention to the environments that allow you to become more fully yourself.

Because sometimes the moments that feel like detours are actually the moments that help you finally come home to yourself.

 Liz Varga