Dr. Benjamin Spock, the American pediatrician whose 1946 book "Baby and Child Care" is one of the biggest best sellers of all time, is arrested at a protest against the Vietnam War in Washington on May 16, 1972.

“Just don’t get arrested,” my mother repeatedly warned me. “You might hurt your career as a doctor.” She had lived through the McCarthy era and knew how easily careers ended. Heeding her words, I kept a low profile at anti-Vietnam war demonstrations.

In 1981 I finished medical school and began my training in Pediatrics. I found myself in what seemed like another war. I was a “private,” a subordinate to the hospital equivalents of lieutenants, colonels and generals. We fought childhood cancer and meningitis, premature birth and AIDS. I ascended the ranks, from the lowly intern to resident. At the time, all residents were subjected to repeated hits from “friendly fire”: enduring targeted questioning from superiors, designed to humiliate us by exposing our abysmal lack of medical knowledge before our colleagues. After three years of this teaching method, it took me awhile to recover from my own PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).

While living through this training, I’d come home exhausted to stare at the TV and take in the evening news. At the time, there was a lot of bad news coming from El Salvador. I once watched in horror as a student from the University of San Salvador was shot outside his classroom by military police. The young man moaned in anguish as his blood flooded onto the linoleum floor, and then he grew still.

I read about the four missing North American churchwomen, who had put themselves in harm’s way simply by helping others. Their bullet-ridden bodies had been discovered buried near the San Salvador airport. It seemed my mother was right about taking risks, and one could lose even more than a medical license.

When I learned about the role of our country’s CIA in perpetrating these events, I wanted to meet others who were as outraged as I, but the internet did not yet exist. I corresponded with nun who lived in San Salvador and ran an orphanage. She took in children whose parents had been “disappeared.” The bodies of these parents, thumbs tied behind their backs execution-style, had been thrown out of large white vans with darkened windows into the roadside.

I could send only a bit of money.

Fortunately, when I moved to San Francisco, I found others who were already organized and committed to ending this violence. A fundraising flyer from the Committee for Health Rights in Central America (CHRICA) caught my eye. I was enticed by the list of speakers, one of whom was a well-known physician, writer and political activist.

In contrast to my mother’s urgent warning, this physician had been arrested many times for his opposition to the Vietnam War, and it hadn’t seemed to damage his career. I wanted to hear what he had to say.

The fundraiser took place at an upscale restaurant in Berkeley, California. As my husband and I climbed the narrow staircase, I became aware of the growing din of talk and clatter of plates. I was surprised to suddenly see a tall elderly gentleman leaning over the balcony, beckoning.

“Hello!” he called, “What’s your name?”

“Abby,” I replied, looking up at him.

“Hi, Abby! I’m Ben! C’mon up and join us!”

At the top of the stairs, we were jostled by the crowd, and eventually handed a glass of wine. We looked around for a familiar face, any face. We noticed Ben motioning us to his small round table.

“Have a seat! Tell me about yourselves!” he invited. His lively eyes made us feel at ease. We were surprised to learn that he, too, was a pediatrician. He asked about us, why we had come.

I told him how the killing that I had witnessed on TV had impacted me, how I wanted to help stop what was happening in El Salvador. I was frustrated because my training consumed so much of my time. I didn’t know how I could really help. He gazed at me in silence, then finally spoke.

“Well, Abby, you’ll do all right,” he nodded. “You’ll have your turn.”

At that moment, a speaker from the podium interrupted our conversation.

“We are pleased to have you here today, to help us promote health rights in Central America. I would like to introduce you to a doctor who has impacted millions of lives, and who has been a true mentor and role model. Please welcome Dr. Benjamin Spock.”

Ben and Martin

We were flabbergasted as, amidst applause, Ben rose from our table and strode to the microphone to speak to the crowd. I felt a red flush rising up my neck, embarrassed that my husband and I, both pediatricians, had not recognized that we had been talking with Dr. Benjamin Spock, “the” Benjamin Spock: pediatrician, psychiatrist, athlete, teacher, writer and political activist.

But as I listened to him speak to the crowd, I felt grateful to have met Ben without the shyness I would have felt, had I realized who he was. I felt myself relax. I suddenly knew that I would find my place in helping others, have my turn, and that I would be “all right.”

I wanted to share this story with you, because I think we can often berate ourselves for not doing enough. We can feel overwhelmed by the amount of work that needs to be done, and our energy, time and money may be limited. Most importantly, we may feel that we don’t know enough to speak up with much authority. We can feel afraid, shy and thus disempower ourselves.

I imagine Ben would have encouraged us to live larger than this, to be more fully ourselves. He would have wanted each of us to take our place and be ready to step forward in our individually unique ways on behalf of others and our planet.

Over the years, I often recalled Ben’s words to me as I juggled work, kids and health challenges: “You’ll have your turn.”

You were so right, Ben. Thank you for generously inviting us to your table. I feel your spirit. My turn has come. My turn is now.

In memory of Dr. Benjamin Spock: May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998