I will present how I came to choose the physician-scientist career pathway. I was inspired from an early age by stories about my great-grandfather, an academic surgeon who innovated gastric suction and is credited for saving thousands of lives. I became involved in research in high school and college, and continued my training in a combined MD/PhD program. As an MD/PhD student I was further inspired by the emerging data from the human genome project to develop tools to improve our understanding of gene functions. I found that the liver is amenable to genetic manipulation, and I focused my career around using genetic tools and methods to improve our understanding and treatment of human liver disease. My advice for budding scientists is to pursue whatever topic they find inspiring. This way, a long and sometimes toilsome career path will be interesting, fulfilling, and totally worth it.