Steve K. Wagner

As a young candy striper at a Los Angeles hospital, lymphoma researcher Alexandra M. Levine, MD, MACP, experienced a portentous moment, although she didn’t necessarily realize it at the time. An older patient, feeling alone and lonely, waved the teenager to his bedside for a chat and she obliged. “He thanked me profusely for having helped him,” she said. “I didn’t understand what I had done, but it was one of those moments that was huge.”