There is a second-grade art project hanging on Dr. Cheri Canon’s wall that offers an early glimpse at the woman she would become.

Asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, Canon wrote “veterinarian,” although she readily admits she did not spell it correctly.

She also predicted she would grow up to cook and clean and make $3 an hour.

Some of the forecasting was better than the rest.

Today, Canon is chief physician executive of UAB Health System and president of the University of Alabama Health Services Foundation. She is also a nationally recognized radiologist, former longtime chair of UAB’s Department of Radiology and president of the American Board of Radiology.

Finding the North Star

But when the work gets complicated, Canon said there is one thing that brings everything back into focus.

“We always have our North Star, and we always agree on our North Star,” Canon said. “And the North Star is how this will impact our patients.”

That North Star has guided a career Canon still genuinely loves more than three decades after entering medicine.

As a teenager in Texas, she worked for family medicine physician Dr. Charles Tubbs, whose relationships with his patients inspired her to pursue medicine. She later came to UAB for her radiology residency expecting Alabama to be a temporary stop.

She never left.

“For 32 years, I’ve wanted to get out of bed and go to that job,” Canon said. “I never find myself looking at my watch during the day and hoping that the end of the day is coming soon.”

That enthusiasm has remained even as her responsibilities have grown.

Canon spent 13 years as chair of UAB’s Department of Radiology before moving into health system leadership, learning along the way that emotional intelligence, resilience and optimism matter just as much as technical expertise.

Opening doors for the next generation of women

But one of the most important parts of her legacy is the women coming behind her.

Canon entered medicine when women were still a minority in medical school, and radiology remains a male-dominated specialty. She credits both male and female mentors with opening doors throughout her career.

“I do realize in some regards I was lucky,” Canon said. “I found a great place to train, a great place to work with wonderful people. And not everyone has those opportunities or those doors open to them.”

That experience helped drive Canon to co-create the LEAD women’s leadership program, an effort aimed at opening doors for women coming behind her.

“Not everyone has those opportunities or those doors open to them,” Canon said. “Achieving female equity has always been a driver for me.”

Advice for the next generation

For young women considering medicine today, Canon acknowledges the profession is facing real challenges, from workforce shortages to physician burnout. But she urges them not to lose sight of what brought them there.

“Try to block out all of that noise because at the end of the day, you’re taking care of patients and their families, you’re making a difference, you’re improving people’s lives,” she said.

Canon is equally candid about the personal demands of building a career like hers.

“I have never experienced nor even had any indicators that I was at risk for burnout,” she said. “At the same token, I have never had balance in my life.”

She believes fulfillment looks different for everyone and credits her family, particularly her husband, a now-retired emergency medicine physician, with making her career possible.

A career her younger self never imagined

When asked whether her younger self would be surprised by where she ended up, Canon paused.

“Probably yes and no.”

She was always driven and ambitious, she said, but never imagined herself leading at the health system level.

“My younger self wouldn’t have even known that that was the art of possible.”

Leaving things better than she found them

And when Canon thinks about how she eventually wants that career remembered, she returns to something much simpler than titles or accolades.

It is a lesson from her parents.

“Leave behind a better place than it was when you arrived.”

“If I’ve moved an organization, a team, a group to be in a better place, however that’s defined, I think that’s success.”

Her younger self may never have imagined where the path would lead. But Canon didn’t need to know the destination to know what would guide her: find the North Star, make a difference and leave things better than she found them.