The earliest memory Dr. Susan Redmond has is of nurses sneaking her up into her mother’s hospital room.
Her mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer and in order to visit, a person had to be at least 16 years old. But Redmond was only three.
Throughout her childhood, her mother stayed sick. After breast cancer, she contracted ovarian cancer and eventually succumbed to the disease. This is what led Redmond down the path to medicine.
“I didn’t have a plan B or a plan C if I didn’t get into medical school,” Susan says.
And there has never been a doubt in her mind that being a doctor is what she was meant to do.
She likes solving problems and helping her patients. Throughout her career, Susan has seen families grow up and has tended to the different generations.
She loves learning and continues to as she serves her patients. Every aspect of her job holds a special place in her heart. While Susan’s peers are beginning to retire, she cannot imagine a life outside of medicine.
When asked what she would do if she wasn’t a doctor, she sat back and contemplated a life without a white coat. It was hard.
She likes history, so maybe a career in that. But nothing would come close to the joy she receives from helping out patients.
The most defining moment in Redmond’s medical career happened more than 30 years ago. She remembers it vividly.
She was working on her residency in Lansing, Michigan. It was June, there was a full moon and a long night ahead of her and her colleagues.
It was right before she became chief resident. Every possible pregnancy complication that a person could have happened that shift.
“We were up all night dealing with a lot of issues but at the end of the day when we finished the call, it was like, ‘we didn’t have anybody die,’” she says. “We had a lot of complications but we didn’t have anybody die.”
Susan finished her residency and decided it was time to leave the cold behind.
She soon found herself in the Valley where the weather was warm and she was one of the few young female doctors.
