Legends in urology.

I was born and raised in Brooklyn New York, in a warm and loving middle class family. My family, their values and my career are intertwined; and are a reflection of my DNA, the environment that shaped me and the decisions that I made during my journey. My mother gave me empathy and passion, and my father the calm, cool, fearlessness that shaped my nature. As a young couple my parents lost their first born child at 10 months of age from meningitis. I had heard this story several times while growing up and it may have subconsciously influenced my career path toward medicine, without my knowing. My father, one of the smartest men I have ever known, was an architectural engineer, who graduated from Cooper Union, a scholarship college, in 1929, at the beginning of the long depression. Together my parents taught me how to cope with adversity, illness, sorrow, pain and suffering with integrity and compassion.