In 2000, Genevie Kocourek was shivering in a tent when she had an epiphany. Then an information technology director who led rock-climbing trips in her spare time, she had enrolled in a wilderness first-responder course to learn how to care for injured climbers.
"It was 38 degrees and raining," she recalls, "and I was having the time of my life!" In high school, Kocourek had dreamed of becoming a doctor, until a guidance counselor insisted that it wasn't "appropriate" for a woman. Now her passion was reignited. When she learned that her employer was offering early retirement, she mulled "retiring" to a brand-new career.
But first she and her husband, Terry, met with a financial adviser. They agreed that she'd keep working to avoid total loss of income while squeezing in premed courses such as chemistry on her lunch break or at night. Absorbing so much new information felt "like drinking from a fire hose," Kocourek says. But by 2004, she'd re
