Sunshine Dwojak, a fourth-year Harvard Medical School student, was 26 when her mother died of heart disease, leaving behind three children. Dwojak’s mother was 48.
“My grandmother said our family ‘just wasn’t lucky,’ and my aunt said that ‘longevity doesn’t run in our family,’” Dwojak said. Growing up, she saw many of her family members suffer from mental illness, heart disease, diabetes, and substance abuse.
