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Carmen Uscatu: Do People Choose Complex Paths, or Does Destiny Guide Them?

Carmen Uscatu/LinkedIn

Jun 24, 2025, 07:23

Carmen Uscatu: Do People Choose Complex Paths, or Does Destiny Guide Them?

Carmen Uscatu, Founding Member and President of Give Life, shared a post on LinkedIn:

” ‘Productive obsession’ will surface, recede, then surface again. It will invade your dreams as it embeds itself in your subconscious. You’ll wrestle with it, walk with it, and sleep with it.

Yesterday I arrived home after three weeks in the U.S., combining my master’s studies with a one-week holiday. On the flight from London to Bucharest, I slept. When I woke up, the man sitting next to me offered me water and biscuits he’d requested from the stewardess for me. He asked, ‘Are you someone I might know from somewhere?’ I smiled, and we began talking.

He, his wife, and their two young daughters were returning from London, where they’d sought treatment for their youngest child. ‘Here in Romania, I couldn’t find a multidisciplinary team to treat my daughter’s rare disease,’ he shared. He mentioned meeting Dr. Tarnoveanu, a neurosurgeon at Marie Curie Hospital – where Give Life built the hospital, but noted the lack of specialized support: no plastic surgeon, ENT specialist, or ophthalmologist familiar with such rare conditions. ‘He doesn’t have a full team,’ he explained.

With more urgency than mere curiosity, he asked: ‘Is it true that building multidisciplinary teams is harder than constructing hospital buildings?’ (I’d mentioned my master’s thesis and planned project at Marie Curie about comprehensive care.) I confirmed: ‘Yes. It takes time.’ He already knew the answer.

Change is difficult yet possible – when you have what’s needed: partnerships with global leaders. My thesis, ‘Achieving Patient-Centered Care in a Childhood Comprehensive Cancer Center Through Sustained Quality Improvement’ focuses on this. I have implementation tools, mentorship from St. Jude’s, and partnerships with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Prinses Máxima Centrum voor kinderoncologie. I call it complex, not difficult. To me, ‘complex’ implies intricate beauty; ‘difficult’ feels less inspiring.

Later, I learned he’s participating in a clinical trial in Spain for his own condition—trials he couldn’t access in Romania. ‘We’ll start conducting trials here this year,’ I told him. His wife remarked, ‘We chose to be a complex family.’ This made me wonder: Do people choose complex paths, or does destiny guide them? And why? How do some things become obsessions in our lives? How do productive obsessions guide us through difficult changes?

From the book A More Beautiful Question – The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas – Warren Berger.”

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Carmen Uscatu: Do People Choose Complex Paths, or Does Destiny Guide Them?

” ‘Productive obsession’ will surface, recede, then surface again. It will invade your dreams as it embeds itself in your subconscious. You’ll wrestle with it, walk with it, and sleep with it.

From the book A More Beautiful Question – The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas – Warren Berger.”