This past week, I had the privilege of speaking with Dr. Masie Cook, a pediatric neurologist and longtime researcher who has spent about twenty years working in the specialty of cerebral palsy advancements. Most of her days are spent with children and young adults, helping them find tools, treatments, and small adjustments that make the world a bit more flexible around them.
I opened the interview with a question people know all to well, “What first pulled her toward neuroscience, and toward this field in particular.” Her answer surprised me. It wasn’t the usual academic story. It was personal, and shows her dedication to her friends and family.
“When I first started surfing on the coast, one of my closest friends wanted to come with me. Because of her cerebral palsy she couldn’t get in the water safely without an adult helping her. I was sad at the time simply because I couldn’t hang out with her. As I grew up I became sad for a different reason. She was missing out on things that could have been made accessible if people put the right effort and funding into it.”
It’s rare to hear someone trace their career all the way back to something like that. A childhood moment that didn’t look profound at the time but clearly rooted itself somewhere deep. Her passion didn’t begin with science at all. It began with wanting her friend beside her in the water, and somehow that simple want carried her into adulthood and into her professional calling.
Detailing more on her path to opening her clinic, we started talking about her patients, most of whom are children. Dr. Cook recalled one memory that shaped her dedication to helping children specifically. “When I was a resident I met a toddler who communicated almost entirely with her eyes. Her determination was unlike anything I had ever seen. I knew then that this was the population I wanted to dedicate my life to.”
Walking into her clinic you can actually feel that dedication. The place is full of color and noise in the best way possible. Toys on the shelves, paintings taped to cabinets, motivational posters that probably came from five different decades. Even the air feels softer. It takes the edge off what is usually a scary appointment. There is always a piece of candy at the end, which kids treat like a trophy.
At one point we drifted into the conversation everyone eventually ends up having these days. Technology and artificial intelligence and all the controversy that comes with the topic. Before I even finished the question, Dr. Cook began laughing and motioning around the room at the piles of devices, tablets, headsets, and machines quietly humming. “Technology is my favorite co clinician,” she joked.
She meant it too. Technology has allowed people of all ages to cross barriers that once felt absolute. “We use adaptive communication devices that let non verbal patients speak with eye tracking or custom buttons. Some of the most moving moments of my week happen when a child says something to their parent for the first time through those devices. It never gets old. Technology isn’t replacing empathy. It’s amplifying it.”
We wandered into another topic without really planning to, looking at the bigger picture outside her clinical practice. She talked about the importance of affordable tech, not just for young kids learning to communicate but for teens and young adults who are still figuring out how to move through the world. “The victories come in all shapes. A child taking their first independent step is incredible. So is a teenager working up the courage to go to a school dance with their assistive devices. A lot of people think progress ends once a kid turns ten, which just isn’t true. As you get older you develop your own determination and that fuels progress in a way nothing else can.”
As we wrapped up, I asked the question I always ask professionals. “What advice would you give to young people entering the field?” Dr. Cook didn’t hesitate. “You need a heart that doesn’t mind being stretched and poked every single day by small hands. Don’t be afraid to sit on the floor with your patients or sing silly songs or celebrate a two millimeter improvement.”
Her answer captured the difference between a job and a calling. Especially in medicine and especially with kids. It isn’t about going through the motions. It’s about showing up fully and not being afraid to get your hands a little messy in the name of progress.