Drawing New Paths: How Science Led Me Back to Art

Yesterday, while cleaning up my computer, I stumbled upon something that instantly made me smile. A couple of years ago, during my internship at Mount Sinai in the Department of Medical Illustration, I was asked to write an essay, or rather, a reflection, about what had brought me there and what I hoped to gain from the experience. What began as a simple task turned into a journey through the past 20 years of my life, back to the moment I chose science over art. That exercise not only retraced my steps but also made my next direction clearer than ever. I was told, “Write your thoughts down; it will help you reorder them and give them shape.” And that’s exactly what happened.

Here what I wrote:

“I’ve always loved to draw. As a kid, my notebooks were covered in sketches and doodles, but when the time came to choose a career, art quietly slipped into the background. In my family, medicine and biology were front and center, so following a scientific track felt natural. Math and biology became my favorite subjects, and like many others, I aimed for medical school.

When I didn’t get in, I was disoriented at first. Out of practicality, I enrolled in Biotechnology, assuming it would just be a temporary detour. But then the lab hooked me. Research had its own magic, the thrill of discovery, the joy of experimenting, and the realization that science wasn’t just about knowledge, but also had the power to drive innovation and improve people’ lives.

Of course, reality was tougher than I imagined. Completing my PhD was the most challenging and transformative journey of my life... I felt exhausted, frustrated, often alone. Yet, in that struggle, I learned resilience. I learned how to push forward, how to stand my ground, how not to give up. When I finally completed and published my work, it wasn’t just an academic achievement for me but; it was proof that I had grown through the journey.

But I was drained. I felt like a battery running on empty.

Then, almost by chance, I attended a workshop on scientific illustration. Something clicked. For the first time in years, I felt that childhood spark return. I realized art and science didn’t have to live in separate worlds;  they could complement each other. I picked up my pencils again and wondered: maybe this was the path I had been circling around all along.

Still, I wasn’t ready to leave research. Not yet.

On something close to a whim, I applied for a postdoc at Yale, and to my surprise, I got it. There, I found a great mentor who believed in me and a project that reignited my excitement. I published, won a fellowship, and traveled to conferences. For a while, I felt strong again.

And then the pandemic hit.

Like for many of us, it was a turning point. The isolation, the distance from family, the constant uncertainty, it all forced me to pause and listen to myself. To stay busy, I enrolled in a program on Scientific Illustration. What I thought would be a distraction turned into clarity. I was drawing again, reconnecting with the part of me I had left behind and realizing that science doesn’t just live in the lab.

The pandemic also made something painfully clear: communicating science is just as important as doing it. Misinformation spread faster than facts. Topics like vaccines, climate change, genetics, and AI, none of them matter if people can’t understand them. And that’s when it clicked: communication was the bridge between my two passions. Science gave me curiosity and rigor; art gave me a voice to share it.

I thought back to how I first fell in love with biology, not through textbooks, but through a children’s cartoon series called “Once Upon a Time…Life”, which playfully explained the human body. Decades later, I could still remember those vivid images. That’s the power of clear, visual storytelling: a single illustration can explain what pages of text cannot.

And then I thought about all the people outside of science such as patients, families, children, who deserve access to that kind of clarity. If I, as a scientist, sometimes struggled to keep up with the scientific jargon, what chance did they have?

I know I’m not alone in this. Many scientists and professionals reach a point where they start asking if the constant grind is worth it. They begin to crave something different, a way to take what they’ve learned and use it in a more fulfilling way. For me, science communication wasn’t an escape from research. It was a new way to serve, one that combined the resilience science gave me with the creativity I had long buried.

Stepping into this new space feels like a leap into the unknown. But maybe this leap, the one so many of us hesitate to take, is exactly where we were always meant to land.”

And if you’ve ever felt torn between what you love and what you’re “supposed” to do, know this: the two don’t have to be opposites. Sometimes they’re waiting to meet in the middle, to create a path that’s yours alone. The struggle doesn’t mean you’ve failed, it means you’re carving out the strength and clarity to build something new. And maybe, just like me, your leap into the dark will turn out to be the brightest step you’ve ever taken. It is going to be difficult, yes, of course! Do I miss the lab, yes, every day! But in the long term, it will be totally worth it.