parallels: dr. emese zsiros and dr. gyorgy paragh
Dr. Emese Zsiros was born in Debrecen, Hungary, and raised with her brother by their academic physician parents in the country’s capital city, Budapest.
Her childhood, according to Emese, was happy. She was an exemplary student, interested in history throughout primary school but always particularly passionate about science–perhaps a result of the countless hours she spent at work with her father, a trauma surgeon, and mother, an anesthesiologist: “I grew up seeing them in the operating room. I was watching heart transplants, I was in the trauma bay hanging out as a kid. And I really loved that.”
Having been exposed to both the clinical and the research aspects of a career in medicine from a young age, medical school was the natural choice for Emese after she finished high school.
She excelled in her coursework as a medical student at the University of Debrecen, ranking among the top students at the school and receiving awards and recognition for her academic success and her research.
Toward the end of her fourth year of medical school, in 2003, Emese won a university-wide competition for her biophysics research, earning her a place as representative of her university at a national conference, that year taking place in Debrecen.
Dr. Gyorgy Paragh’s journey into medicine was not so different from Dr. Zsiros’.
While Emese was growing up in operating rooms in Budapest, Gyorgy was spending time at work with his own parents, also both doctors and researchers, his mother a dermatologist and his father an endocrinologist cardiologist, in Debrecen. Like Emese, Gyorgy did well in school and was especially drawn to science.
Encouraged by his high school chemistry teacher, Gyorgy orchestrated a series of experiments and presented his findings on the UV absorption of various fabrics and plastics at a student research conference–all as a teenager.
The project helped him discover in himself a deep interest in research: “That showed me the importance of doing research. Looking back, it was a tiny, tiny project without much impact or relevance. But still, it really helped forge me into who I am.”
As it was for Emese, medical school was the natural next step for Gyorgy when he graduated from high school. And as Emese did, Gyorgy excelled in his time at the University of Debrecen, where he explored his interest in leadership through involvement in student politics and continued cultivating his passion for research.
Approaching the end of his sixth and final year as a medical student, Gyorgy won the university’s research competition for his biochemistry work and was invited to represent the school on the national stage, at the same spring conference Emese would attend for her biophysics research.
The young Emese and Gyorgy exchanged phone numbers, connected during the conference’s social events. They carried the connection into that summer, and then beyond. The shared story that began there continues today, 20 years later.
I sat down with Dr. Zsiros and Dr. Paragh, now 17 years married and living in Buffalo, New York, with their four children, in the spring of 2023.
The two laughed about the early weeks and months of their relationship, the brief summer that followed their meeting. Both had plans in place for the coming academic year–Gyorgy to begin his PhD studies at Budapest’s Semmelweis University and Emese to spend her fifth year of medical school in Spain, through a program that gives European students an opportunity to complete some of their education abroad.
“He was transitioning to Budapest and I was going to Spain, so I think we had a little bit of an accelerated course,” Emese said. “I remember I had my summer planned out, because it was April already. I said, ‘I signed up for a tour of Corsica, in the Mediterranean.’ The next I know he contacted the tour company and signed up as well.”
Gyorgy reminded her that they had, of course, discussed the idea before he made that call.
They dated for three years, building their relationship often from a distance, visiting one another around Europe as each continued their separate studies.
Gyorgy, having decided that a career in academic dermatology–clinical practice and research–was his goal, began his PhD at Semmelweis University almost immediately after medical school, spending most of the first year in Budapest before moving to Germany for a collaborative research project with the University of Regensburg.
Meanwhile, Emese spent her fifth and some of her sixth year in Alcalá de Henares, Spain, before returning to Debrecen to complete her degree in 2005.
It was at this time that Emese and Gyorgy began to discuss seriously what the path forward was for them together, as partners.
For Emese, who had gravitated toward women’s health in her final years of medical school and decided that she wanted to pursue a career in gynecology, the best next step was to continue her training abroad. The formal fellowship potential in the United States, different from the residency and apprenticeship options in Europe, appealed to her. For Gyorgy, it was imperative that he find an opportunity to continue his dermatology practice and research.
They agreed that they would move to the United States, apply for residency–if they got into the right programs, they would stay.
In 2006, Emese and Gyorgy, now Dr. Zsiros and Dr. Paragh, got married, packed a couple of suitcases, and crossed the Atlantic.
As they had in Europe, Dr. Zsiros and Dr. Paragh shared a life together in the United States while pursuing different careers. Neither compromised on their goals.
Dr. Zsiros completed her OB/GYN residency at Northwestern University in Chicago in 2011 before continuing on to a fellowship in gynecologic oncology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, which she completed in 2014.
Dr. Paragh completed his postdoctoral fellowship in experimental therapeutics at Tampa, Florida’s H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in 2009 and his residency in dermatology at Milwaukee’s Medical College of Wisconsin in 2014.
While they sought ways to live and work in close proximity to one another as much as possible, they spent some of the eight years between their move to the United States and the completion of their respective formal training in the kind of “long distance” arrangement they’d grown familiar with in Europe.
After all of their formal medical training was done, their collective and individual pursuits led them to the same place.
Today, both Dr. Zsiros and Dr. Paragh hold leadership positions at Buffalo’s Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, where Dr. Zsiros is Chair and Director of Research of the Department of Gynecologic Oncology and Dr. Paragh is Chair of the Department of Dermatology.
Dr. Zsiros divides her time at Roswell Park between patient care (some days meeting with patients to discuss diagnoses and treatment options, other days in the operating room performing complex surgeries); research (both clinical and translational); teaching (in lectures and in clinical settings); and the management of her department (which means budgeting, recruiting, outreach, and more).
“So I think it’s quite a packed and busy schedule throughout the week,” she said, in an epic understatement, after listing her day to day responsibilities, “alternating between these different roles and wearing different hats. But I love that about my job.”
Dr. Paragh nodded along as Dr. Zsiros spoke. He, too, divides his time between patients in surgical and clinical capacities, research, teaching, and administration. The two have a deep understanding of one another’s lives, the differences and the similarities in their days.
As busy as they are, each is where they set out to be when they began their careers–practicing medicine, researching, leading in the fields that drew them from the time they were children, watching their parents do the same.
This is what is so captivating about Dr. Zsiros and Dr. Paragh’s story–that they built a life together, a shared story, while building two entirely unique, highly accomplished careers around their individual passions.