December 27, 2014. My father lost consciousness in the bathroom. The paramedics took him to the emergency department, where I held a pink bucket in front of his face and watched as he vomited blood into it. At the time, I was a fourth-year medical student in the midst of pediatric residency interviews.

Less than a week later, the resident called with my father鈥檚 biopsy results. I heard the words 鈥済astric adenocarcinoma,鈥� and my mind went blank. Computed tomography scan, positron emission tomography staging, surgical oncology, lymph node dissection, tumor board, chemotherapy, and radiation oncology鈥攖hese words, which I had been familiar with in lectures and on the wards as a medical student, swirled around me as if they were a foreign language.