Eight-year-old Patti is caught reading in her bedroom by her mother who warns her not to be a "bookworm" because no one will marry her. From such an early start, she faces the enormity of her educational disadvantage with parents who are unschooled, ignorant of the importance of education, and therefore unable to offer nurturing or guidance. She finds a different source of validation by competing with her classmates academically. Despite good grades her parents forbid her from attending college and disown her. Banished, and without money, she finds her way to college. There, she cautiously takes her path by emulating those she admires and rejecting negative influences. Eventually, she receives her PhD in Anatomy from UCLA Medical School. Her scientific career takes her on an adventure of learning and discovery, with fieldwork in Africa and to Europe where she immerses herself in bold new academic and cultural experiences. On return to the USA, she joins the faculty at Washington University School of Medicine. Her career in science becomes permeated with disappointments from frequent encounters with misogyny. Confident that her medical science background would serve her, Patti changes her career to clinical medicine and receives an MD from Washington University. She discovers life as a physician to be her true calling, one that calls on expertise as both a healer and teacher. As revealed through patients' stories, she gains empathy, compassion, and understanding of the importance of personal dignity. During the learning process, she meets her true love and finds everlasting richness in a balanced life of family and career.