WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
Talia R. Kaden, MD, grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as the third of four children. She played sports throughout her childhood and loved math and robotics. She also loved sewing; her Hungarian grandmother was a seamstress and taught her to sew when she was 8 years old. When Dr. Kaden was 14, her parents bought her a sewing machine, which she still uses today. During her time at the local public high school, she made her own prom dress. She has always liked working with her hands.
HER PATH TO RETINA
Even before medical school, Dr. Kaden knew that she wanted to do something surgical. She seriously considered neurosurgery and orthopedic surgery before deciding that the combination of surgery and outpatient medicine offered by ophthalmology was the most compelling path forward.
While a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Scholar at the National Eye Institute, she studied mitochondrial function in ground squirrels and found that they selectively protect their retinas while in hibernation. This remarkable learning moment underscored the importance of sight and highlighted just how complicated and crucial a tiny part of an already small organ could be. By the time she began her residency, she was committed to retina, and though she considered other fields, they were never able to draw her attention in quite the same way.
Dr. Kaden’s Advice: The choices you make about with whom and where you practice are important for both your day-to-day experience and your long-term success.
SUPPORT ALONG THE WAY
Her first mentor was her high school science teacher and track coach, Gina Pacitti Barone. She pushed Dr. Kaden to think beyond her textbooks, graded on a curve, and provided the first example of an unapologetic woman in science. Dr. Kaden and Coach Barone are still in touch.
More recently, her fellowship mentors have become colleagues, partners, and friends, but they still serve as important sounding boards for difficult clinical and surgical cases. Dr. Kaden is indebted to them for their support and encouragement and for every time they have recommended her as a speaker or conference organizer. Her colleagues are a wonderful example of how to be a mentor, and she keeps them in mind as she trains her own fellows.
AN EXPERIENCE TO REMEMBER
Dr. Kaden had the pleasure of serving as the curriculum chair for the 2022 OSN Retina meeting in New York City in November 2022. It was a special opportunity to meet an amazing faculty and help craft the educational direction and structure of a national meeting.
ADVICE FOR THOSE WHO FOLLOW
Dr. Kaden said that fellows should be honest with themselves about the parts of their training that have brought them joy and seek out environments that maximize those moments while helping them achieve their broader career goals. For her, those include taking care of complex cases, seeing a diverse patient population, and engaging with the retina community as an educator and a participant in local and national meetings. And be sure you like your colleagues, she added. She feels lucky to work with remarkable physicians who make her days even more enjoyable.
