Dr. Zarick's insight into my medical case would years later come back to help me. If she hadn't taken the time to listen, and process all of the information, I wouldn't still be here today.
In 1991, when I was 16 years old, I was experiencing a number of strange infections. At once point, she pulled my mother aside and said "your daughter has a severe ecoli infection in her vagina, and she doesn't have a fever or an elevated white cell blood count, and that isn't normal".
Unfortunately, my mother (for reasons perhaps only a psychologist can help me with), blew it off, attributing it to just normal growing whatever, but Dr. Zarick was insistent that there was something wrong (and that I needed to follow up with my normal pediatrician).
This is significant, because as the years past the problem became worse and worse, my infections more extreme and scary, and as doctors kept asking me about my past, I slowly started to remember...'wait a minute, there was this one doctor at Centreville Urgent Care who was very concerned about me...'
And then when I finally got my hands on some of my old records, there it was--yeast infections, bronchitis, strep throat, and of course the ecoli infection i cultured positive for without the corresponding elevated wbc seen in most normal people...
She was working at the Urgent Care, but if she hadn't taken the time to think about what was going on with me, and alert my mother (a conversation they had in the hallway outside of the room I was in, which thankfully I overheard), I wouldn't be here today.
She was the first physician to know something was wrong, and speak up about it. When I stumbled upon a more recent review written by a patient of hers that said the same positive things I felt about her, I was very glad to read she's still practicing medicine with the same heart and soul she had back when I was younger. read more
