Family First

“We have been married over 40 years,” Sharon begins. “Michael is a critical care and palliative care physician. I was a primary care internist and healthcare executive and am now an executive coach.

“Both the oldest in large Catholic families, we grew up in New Jersey — Michael at Garden State Parkway Exit 165, me at Exit 114.

“We met at the Georgetown University cafeteria. At the time, I was a freshman undergraduate nursing student. I’d spotted Michael, a junior undergrad, leaving his organic chemistry class in the same science lecture hall where my freshman nursing chemistry class met immediately after his. I thought Michael was tall, handsome, and had great style.

“Some of my New Jersey friends who knew Michael thought the two of us might hit it off. They suggested I linger in the cafeteria after dinner one evening when Michael planned to join them for dessert. Not long after that meeting, Michael and I shared the craziest, longest, best first date on April Fool’s Day. It started with a party, then a movie, sharing a pint of mint chip ice cream, dancing and beer at the college pub, late-night cappuccinos at an Argentinian coffeehouse, and finally, a long, slow meandering walk back to the dorms. We celebrate April Fool’s Day every year.

“That spring break, Michael drove me and some friends home to New Jersey, where we each met the other’s families. We both recall that there was something special about each other. But we were very young at that time, so it took eight years before we decided we were ready to get married.”

“There were a few breaks here and there,” Michael admits. “Right person, wrong time I always felt. And there were other factors of course as to why we didn’t tie the knot sooner, but looking back it probably was best since we were able to deal with other growth and career issues.

“Both of my parents were physicians; Sharon’s father was a successful businessman and her mother a homemaker for their six children. We shared New Jersey roots, lots of siblings, a group of friends in common, and imperfect marriage examples from our parents.

“When we first met, neither of us imagined that we might be interested in medicine. We were just beginning to think about educational goals, let alone career goals. In fact, I was pretty set against going into medicine. Although I found biology and technology interesting, my parents’ messy divorce made me wonder if the juxtaposition of their shared lives: careers as physicians on the one hand and on the other, family, spouse, and parent. Was it simply too much? This may have been a naive belief, but I felt that their medical careers had been a major factor in their divorce.

“Understanding the negative impact of divorce on my siblings and my parents, I wanted to avoid that outcome at all costs. Family became most important to me, so I refused to consider a medical career. Of course, in hindsight, my analysis of the roots of my parents’ failed marriage turned out to be wrong. Despite this, I was drawn to medicine. Nevertheless, my decision to become a physician always included my intention that career would be second to family.”

“Although my parents were also divorced,” Sharon continues, “my journey to becoming a physician was different than Michael’s. I had seen the inequitable financial impact my parents’ divorce had on my mother and was determined to be financially independent. But I also was filled with doubts about my capabilities and had lots of concerns that a medical career might not fit my desire to have a family.

“As the first woman in my family to go to college, my primary source of career coaching came from my high school chemistry teacher who believed that I could become a doctor. But it was unimaginable to me at the time. Financial support from my parents was conditional upon choosing nursing or business which they felt guaranteed a job after graduation. I initially chose nursing, but soon realized that in fact I was on my own financially since their financial support was insufficient to cover the costs or to influence my educational decisions any longer.

“Very soon after we met, we had no doubt that we’d met someone who would be important to each of us. I thought Michael was so handsome and so interesting and smart. I was impressed with his confidence, his sense of adventure, and his complete belief in my capabilities. After my sophomore year, I transferred to Georgetown College, declaring a pre-med major and was later accepted to Georgetown Medical School.”

“I was captivated by Sharon,” Michael says. “I appreciated both her drive and her priorities. Our ethos seemed to sync. When Sharon was a sophomore in medical school, I matched for residency several hundred miles away in New York City. We agreed: no long distance relationship. Medical school and residency were difficult enough without that burden as well. The distance required some decisions by both of us. I returned to Washington, DC, to complete my residency after internship in New York so that we could focus on our relationship. Two years later it was the ‘right time, still right person.’

“Once Sharon was about to finish medical school and choose a residency, we decided to get married. I was completing my internal medicine residency and looking at critical care fellowships. We became engaged just days before Sharon left the country for a refugee medicine elective in Thailand. No cell phones, no internet! That left me and Sharon’s mom to plan the wedding and the honeymoon for the weekend after medical school and residency graduations. This was just one example of the complete trust we had in each other to make big decisions.”

“At the wedding, although we were both physicians, we had the band announce us as ‘Mr. and Mrs.,’” Sharon says. “That’s because that day was about our new beginning and identity as a married couple. It did not please everyone who felt that the title of ‘Dr.’ was essential to our relationship. We felt it was indeed essential, but more importantly, for us, it was secondary.

“We both chose our residencies before being married and we both wanted a family. However, I made choices such as taking on considerable debt rather than military scholarships to allow for flexibility of a family. Our parents were divorced, and we wanted our marriage to succeed.

“Michael accepted a critical care fellowship in New York City so I also applied to programs based there even though I didn’t really want to go to New York. In the end it was wonderful. I was undecided as to specialty so I did a transitional internship at the same hospital as Michael and was considering dermatology or primary care. I started in primary care. By the second year, I was expecting our first baby, and in the fourth year, our second arrived. The program was very supportive and in each case, I was able to take 12 weeks off with the babies. So primary care it was — and I never looked back.

“Michael’s physician parents advised him that the most important decision for a physician was choosing a specialty. ‘Choose what you love, because you will never be compensated adequately for the work you put in and the sacrifices you make,’ they told him. So, he chose critical care, a specialty he knew was perfect for him from his first day in the ICU as an intern. He was confident that he would find a job somewhere in critical care that would fit his priorities in life. As critical care was a nascent specialty, this was at best a hope, but he and I knew we would make it work because we both shared common goals.

“Marrying a fellow physician absolutely influenced the type of practice setting I chose. I had no example of a mom working outside the home, so while my career was important, my kids were most important. I observed everything Michael’s physician mom did to manage both her career and her family.

“I had my first child in my second year of residency and my second as chief resident, so this wasn’t an abstract idea when choosing my first job. We had already been integrating work and life. I chose an administrative role as an academic clinic director in Pittsburgh immediately after residency and built a faculty practice. Basically, I knew I had coverage and the flexibility to leave the office whenever the children needed me — one was two years old and the other was two months old. Michael and I shared this responsibility, so that if either of us had to be at work, the other could manage the household. Michael hired our housekeepers in both New York and Pittsburgh, managed the dental appointments, shoe shopping, and coached the kids’ sports.”

“Marrying a fellow physician never influenced the type of practice setting I chose,” Michael asserts. “I knew Sharon understood my life priorities, and felt we trusted each other enough to appreciate that the choices we made would fit each of us as well as both of us. My advice to her was, choose what you love. We’ll make it work because we knew we had our priorities straight. I’m not sure whether that was a naive thought or not, but it seems to have played out well.

“After fellowship, I was offered two positions: one in Washington, DC, a city we both knew and loved, the other in Pittsburgh, where we had only two close friends. The DC job paid more than twice the Pittsburgh position, but included a week of nights every six weeks. The Pittsburgh position promised no night call, only one weekend duty per month, no night phone calls, and home daily by 4 p.m. or so. It was a tough decision, but given our priorities of family first, it turned out to be easy: Pittsburgh.”

“Sharon gets a lot of credit for her support and trust,” Michael adds.

“Over the years we each have had the opportunity to take turns supporting the career opportunities of the other for the betterment of both,” Sharon says. “The first for Michael was when he left his residency in New York, returning to DC to focus on our relationship. Later, the second big choice was to move to Pittsburgh even though my career opportunities there were not clear at the time. Six years later, I was accepted into the White House Fellowship Program in Washington, DC. We decided not to be apart, so Michael took a year leave from the University of Pittsburgh and we all moved to DC for a fabulous year.

“Michael completed an ethics fellowship and worked per diem. Twenty-three years later, I was offered a great opportunity in Connecticut, near our family, and it was Michael who had a less clear career path. However, because it was near our aging parents and our siblings, it was a ‘no-brainer.’ In the end, it all works out if one is flexible, sensible, and shares in the decision-making.

“We each come from large families (six in mine, eight in Michael’s) and always wanted children. We also agreed that family would come first. Still, our careers are very important to both of us, and we support each other’s career goals completely. We knew from the start that we would have to share the workload, and some things just would not get done. How it was going to sort out was not clear — just that we would make it work.

“The early days in Pittsburgh made it easier. Michael got up early and came home earlier than me, so he could make the lunches and cook dinners (usually, but certainly not always). My job started and finished later, so I got the kids up and ready for school on weeks when Michael was ‘on service’ in the ICU, and when he was not, he could help with getting to the bus or drive to school. And, of course, when the children were really little, I did the bulk of the infant care.

“We realized early on, based on watching Michael’s mother’s home help, as well as an assessment of what we realistically could do in a single day, that we needed in-house help. Michael grew up in a two-physician household, which worked only because of help with domestic chores like cleaning and overseeing the comings and goings of all the children. This enabled both parents to work, and Michael’s mother could still do the cooking, which was a priority for her and the family.

“Work-life balance is in constant evolution. I think of it as work-life integration. It is unrealistic to expect to drop a medical career at the doorstep and pick it up again when you leave. Michael and I talked about our day every night at family dinner. Cooking every night was unfamiliar to me, but Michael insisted. His upbringing emphasized dinner as the core of family. So I let him cook. Another good decision.

“My contribution was based on my mother’s tradition: lit candles and cloth napkins. Sometimes our kids told us that the medical conversation was too graphic, but they all learned a lot of practical medicine, and they all love to eat and cook great food.

“If one of us had to work late or travel, we understood. However, birthdays and holidays, now family traditions, were exceptions. We always celebrated these milestones with gusto because they are important, or at least important to us. We invited the neighborhood, and many of the kids told their parents they wanted to have their next birthday at the DeVita’s. Developing our own traditions provided structure and reassurance that, at the time, we perhaps didn’t fully understand but now can see, helped to define our family.”

“Although we planned to remain in Pittsburgh for only three to five years, we ended up spending 23 years there,” Michael explains. “We moved there knowing only two people and they moved away within a month! Our families of origin visited frequently, but day to day felt lonely at first.

“We had good jobs and we soon learned that the community is very neighborhood- and family-oriented. So building a community in Pittsburgh was really helpful and not very difficult. We joined a local swim club and were very quickly assimilated into a close network of friends on our street. Sharon became known to the local children as ‘The Street Doctor.’ If our child was seen cycling without a helmet, we’d receive a call from a neighbor before the child even came home. They had no place to hide (wink).

“This ‘second family’ made it easier to be a dad, mom, and spouse for several reasons. We had the security that our neighbors ‘had our backs.’ We had a large network who had similar problems at home who could support us or at least commiserate. Somehow, stepping into that home/neighborhood setting made it easier for us to leave work at work. Our youngest two children were born in Pittsburgh during that time.

“As we’ve said, Sharon and I decided early on that the one thing that matters to us is family. It supersedes all else. That recognition made some decisions very easy: If it was better for the family, that was the choice. While we generally took work trips separately, on some occasions we turned a work trip into a vacation for the two of us or with the family. We always planned family vacations to places we wanted to go such as Europe. Most of the kids had passports as infants and now all have a great love of travel.”

“Another example of family first comes to mind,” Sharon says. “Michael was an international leader in donation after circulatory determination of death, and had been a consultant and speaker in many countries. At one meeting, Michael was asked if he would be interested in giving a talk and then assisting a committee in France to help create their country’s regulations. He was so delighted because he’d always wanted to give a talk in France, and in French. He agreed immediately. When he asked the date, it happened to be on our daughter’s birthday. It was an easy, but sad decision for him to decline.

“Communication is probably the area where we have had to work on the most in our marriage and the area that will always be a work in progress. Based on our personalities, being alone together is most important. Being away from distractions such as kids, phone, and TV. So on long car rides, and over dinner in a restaurant, and away on vacation for some period of time together works very well. We brainstormed this chapter on a vacation floating in the ocean. Because we have a large family and big jobs, this had to be a priority. Friday night pizza, Saturday night reservations, Sunday family dinners are all routine opportunities to connect and talk. This cadence works for us. This way we can plan, listen, reflect, argue and resolve things usually quite nicely.

“We both have strong personalities and are not afraid to disagree but also know each other’s triggers well enough to avoid them. In a long marriage, there has to be forgiveness. Sometimes each of us needs forgiveness, and resolution depends on the other granting it. That’s not to say that it is forgotten; rather, we have decided to move on together. Saying ‘I am sorry’ without excuses or conditions is as important as saying ‘I love you.’

“Competition in our marriage has never been a factor. Each of our successes is both of our successes. Michael has always encouraged me. Sometimes I borrow his belief in me when I don’t have it within myself. For example, when I was invited to apply for a White House Fellowship, obtain a master’s degree, and certify as a coach, Michael just said ‘That sounds great. You’ve got it! Money? No problem. We will figure it out.’

“It is not to say that when one of our careers is either soaring or struggling, each of us doesn’t feel that something is changing and wonder what it may mean to them personally. At no point has either of us felt that our marriage and family would change. Sometimes it is scary, but we learned that’s the most important time to reflect and to talk with each other. Michael is my best friend and I trust his judgment. I may not agree with everything he says, but I do respect it and him.”

“One challenge we faced was working in the same health system,” Michael says. “We had a great experience training in New York. However, it didn’t translate well later in our career because we worked too closely together and we were both ambitious. Another challenge is the busyness and urgency of our work. Usually these might be out of sync, such as when a patient became very ill.

“The AIDS and COVID epidemics were very difficult times for both of us. AIDS colored our residency and fellowship years; COVID, the last phase of our careers. In retrospect these challenges, while difficult, enabled us to learn a lot about ourselves and each other. Sometimes the only way is to be resilient, so we wouldn’t change any of these experiences now.

“Bottom line: The rewards of a dual-physician marriage are many. First, you understand what the other person is facing — a bad boss, a dying patient, understaffed health systems. Second, there is career stability, which allows you to take risks and try new things. There is always a job for a physician. Third, in addition to career stability, financial stability is a clear benefit in a dual-physician marriage.

“We have always had joint savings and checking accounts, purchased property together and each other’s debt was shared. The total sharing of our lives helps and all big financial decisions are made together. We didn’t worry that one of us was going to take on debt, buy an expensive car or a new house as a surprise. We were able to provide stability for our children that we didn’t experience ourselves.

“Sharon and I have been ‘all in’ on the binding decisions of our lives. That sort of commitment helps through the tough spots. And they are very tough sometimes. So whenever one of us was in a career transition, the financial foundation we built allowed for exploration and relief from urgent decision making to take any job available. Early in our careers, my salary was higher. Later, Sharon’s salary was higher. Each situation allowed the other spouse room to grow and we both prospered as a result.”

“We have four amazing adult children who we encouraged to try their best and follow their own paths,” Sharon says. “Sometimes, especially early in my career and motherhood journeys, I worried that my work was negatively impacting the kids. I was the only mom on the street who left for work every day. I took work on vacations, woke early to do work, and did work after the kids went to bed. There were things I missed such as daytime school events. Learning that the babysitters had favorites and were not consistently kind to my kids was the most painful experience I have had as a mother. On the other hand, we now see that they learned important values including independence and respect for women. On a trip to DC, our daughter asked, ‘Can we go to the monuments for the women presidents now?’ She cried when I told her that there have not been any women presidents. But she could be first!

“Further, our children saw us both succeed fantastically and fail abruptly. They saw how we supported each other and how it turned out well with a little effort. They now have partners with these same characteristics of unconditional support.

“We had no expectations for the children other than they try to be their best selves. In their childhood we chose with them, schools that encouraged the values of community, diversity, and kindness. We changed schools when we felt it was not serving that child.

“Our children are now in their late 20s to 30s, and they have all found their unique path in their lives. We never tried to steer them. But we did ask exploring questions to help them sort out their thoughts and solidify their choices. And we always gave 100% support and approval for all they did even when we didn’t understand it at the time.

“Two of our children are physicians, and both their paths were nontraditional. Our younger son always wanted to be a doctor. Declaring he was going to be one even before he was accepted to undergrad. He is now an internist and infectious diseases epidemiologist. He spent two years after college — first in a Fulbright in Taiwan and later a research year in Australia. Our older son was a professional dancer for a decade before enrolling in a post-baccalaureate program pre-med, then medical school, and is now headed to residency in anesthesia.

“Our daughters took interesting paths as well. Our oldest daughter is a visual artist and educator whose work has evolved from two to three and then four-dimensional art (painting, sculpting, film). Our youngest daughter moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, completing her master’s in medical anthropology. She is now enrolled in a PhD program to further her studies and research in the fall.”

Michael and Sharon share this advice that they give to young physicians and couples starting out their marriages:

1. Love what you do for work. If you don’t love it, get help and support to explore what you might want to do next and do it.

2. Agree on the “one thing” that is most important for your family. And also recognize that each of your individual priorities may change over a long marriage. Nothing has gone wrong. It is normal. Be patient, listen carefully, and get help if you need it.

3. Support each other’s successes and struggles equally. Life will bring plenty of both, so helping each other through the ebbs and flows of life is a strong foundation for a successful partnership and marriage.

4. Have fun and build a network of support — spiritual, friends, family, colleagues.

5. Make time for this relationship. Fidelity, respect, trust, honesty, forgiveness, and fairness are not just Aristotelian ideals; they are fundamental to all interpersonal relationships.

Excerpted from Lessons Learned: Stories from Dual-Physician Marriages (American Association for Physician Leadership, 2026).