A world without the skills and expert care of today’s medical professionals is hardly imaginable at all. Widely known and respected for lending themselves around the clock to help others, society’s health deeply depends on our doctors/nurses/counselors/therapists collective assertiveness. But on whom do they depend? Rarely do we as a community pause to explore the paradigm shift that often occurs when physicians become patients needing the same treatment. Recently, ESSENCE sat down with Kallie Hargrove, a Sickle Cell Warrior and registered hematology-oncology nurse to learn how her unique perspective informs her work and inspires her own fight against blood disease.