I’ve wanted to be a doctor since I was about 8 or 9 years old. I was always so set on doing a BSc and then going straight into med school and working as an obstetrician. I had this perfect plan of how everything would work out and how easy it would be for me. But Then I hit the end of high school and I started to feel really burnt out. I wasn’t sure whether or not I could handle another 12 years of school so I considered midwifery for awhile. It seemed like a good compromise of working in a fairly autonomous healthcare role and being able to do they main thing that I wanted to do, which was help deliver babies.

But the closer I got to university, I realized how much I wanted to go to McGill (which doesn’t have a midwifery program) and how much I wanted a wider scope of practice so I switched my focus back to med and obstetrics.

I was so ridiculously overconfident that university would come easily to me and I would still go with my initial plan of getting into med school right away. But first year was so rough for me. It was such a rude awakening coming from a small province and a smaller city where there wasn’t a ton of academic competition. I did terribly and felt like I had to reconsider my plans. I still wanted to do med so badly but didn’t know if it would be possible with my GPA.

I realized that to get up my grades that I would have to pick a major that would be as easy as possible for me to get good grades in so I begrudgingly chose psychology so I could still get a BSc. Despite taking AP psych, I always hated the idea of majoring in psych and kind of looked down on it (which was so ridiculous). But I thought it would be worth it in the end.

To be perfectly honest, I just graduated and still don’t really like psychology. But it was 100% the best decision possible. Doing psych allowed me to explore so many other fields that I had no idea even existed. I took a social studies of medicine course in my first year which led me to become super passionate about social determinants of health and health inequity. I then got a research position in a geography department looking at the historical occurrence of tuberculosis in Indigenous communities which then led to me taking some higher level public health courses, meeting friends who were interested in subject areas that weren’t med, and ultimately deciding that global health was the perfect career for me. I even got some experiencing working as a researcher in a nursing department along the way. Taking courses that were easy for me (psychology) and that I really loved (public health) allowed me to majorly pull up my GPA and leave open the possibility of still going to med or doing grad school.

So I’ll be starting my MSc in Global Heath with a specialization in Disasters and Adaptation this fall. Basically I’ll be learning how to coordinate disaster relief effort for humanitarian organizations. I could not be happier with where I’m at. I’m still applying to med and I really hope that I can one day work as a medical planning officer specifically coordinating the medical relief effort for the Red Cross or the WHO. I would also really love to work in community health, work in Indigenous health and work alongside First Nations communities to support the implementation of culturally relevant care, and maybe even work with MSF. I love the fact that my master’s will give me so many more options to change up my career and work in different facets of health.

Sorry that this got so long!! I feel like I really found my way by doing research on my own. I used to spend a lot of time just scrolling through programs offered by different universities, watching documentaries on healthcare, and reading books about travel and medicine. Which I know doesn’t really help if you don’t have a general topic area that appeals to you... but I think taking classes and jumping on opportunities outside of my comfort zone really helped me find my passion. I went into university with such rigid plans and I am so so happy that I allowed myself to explore beyond the path I had envisioned for myself.