So today is a good day to share the story of how I became a physician, and I promise you, it’s not typical and it speaks to the goodness of people. I’ll keep it as short as I can, but it’s going to be a long thread.

I never planned on becoming a doctor. I was a high school dropout that got bored working and headed back to University as an English major. Barely got into @YorkUniversity and started out as an English major.

And I was a bit of a stereotype, far more interested in girls and substances than I was in getting decent grades, but during the summer of first and second year I had an epiphany (another thread another day)

and I switched into the sciences along with quitting all substances and making a pact with myself that if I wasn’t in the classroom (I hate classrooms), I’d be in the library. And for the next 3 years I’d bet I

opened and/or closed the library at least 200 days of the year. My plan had been to get a PhD in genetics, but because all my friends were writing the MCAT, I figured I should too.

I did and then in third year of science, because I wasn't sure I wanted to go into medicine, I applied only to @UofTMedicine. I had done well those 3 yrs, and I was thrilled to get interviewed. That summer following the interview I was working in Israel at The Weizmann Institute

and it was there that I realized actually no, I don’t love bench work enough, and so getting into med school suddenly became more important. The day the acceptance letters came out though, I was 5,800 miles from my mailbox

and so I called the admissions office to speak with an admissions officer to ask if I’d gotten in, and at first he told me he couldn’t tell me, but when I explained I wasn’t hitting my mailbox anytime soon he told

me that he had bad news and good news. The bad news was that I didn’t get in, but the good news was that I got onto the waitlist. I didn’t get off of it though, and back to York I went. Now really wanting to get into medical

school I contacted that same admission officer and asked if I could meet with him to discuss my application and what I ought to work on to improve it for the next year, and he kindly agreed, and ultimately it came down

to marks and that first year of English. And so I headed back to school and worked my ass off getting extremely high grades. I also sent a thank you to that admissions officer because both when I was in Israel and afterwards

he had been so kind and helpful. So when it came time to apply to medical school again, this time I applied to every school in Ontario and on the day that the interview offers came out, I received a phone call from

that him. He wanted to tell me in person that I hadn’t received an interview from UofT this year. Confused, I asked why, given my marks were pretty much as high as you could get and he’d told me that was where I

needed to improve my application. He said that consequent to a smaller class size they were interviewing 200 fewer students and that I’d missed a cutoff for an interview by 0.15 out of 15 points. He then wished me well

and told me he was sure that I’d get interviewed elsewhere and get in somewhere. And I did get interviewed elsewhere, everywhere in fact, but I got in nowhere, and confused with what to do with my life I

called to return the NSERC scholarship I’d received to do my masters in medical genetics and made plans to spend a year in Israel and do a one year program for Jews in the diaspora to join the army which if I decided

to emigrate would have counted towards my mandatory service. Had a meeting booked to discuss same with the Israeli consulate in late August. Anyhow, came home the day before that interview and there was a message

on my answering machine from that admissions officer asking me to call him back. I did figuring he wanted to check if I got in anywhere and indeed that’s what he asked, and after I said no, he told me that @UofTMedicine

was interviewing 4 more students and would I care to be one of those who were interviewed. I of course said yes and he asked me if I could show up at 8:30am the next morning to be interviewed by a Dr. Ian Taylor.

I of course said yes again, cancelled my appointment at the embassy and the next morning Dr. Taylor spent an hour chatting with me about a whole host of things, my desire to pursue medicine not among them. At the end of the interview he asked me if there

was anything we didn’t speak about that I thought was important and I piped up with something about maybe we could talk about why I think I might make a good doctor. He then told me that if I had complaints about

the interview I could write them down on the evaluation form and that I should follow him up to the medical education office and he would get it for me. Mortified, I followed him and he sat me down on a sofa where I waited

After roughly 10 minutes the door he had entered opened and he walked out with someone else and he said that he wanted to introduce me, and the other person stuck out her hand and said, “Hi, I’m Dr. Miriam Rossi, the Dean of Admissions,

and on behalf of the Faculty of Medicine I would like to extend you an offer of admission”. Shock doesn’t describe the emotion I was feeling but the first words I believe I uttered were, “Is there something I can sign?”. The 10 minutes had been spent preparing same and so yes,

there was. After signing I got into my car and driving home I had to pull over because I was sobbing uncontrollably, but when I got home I immediately called that admissions officer to ask what had happened, especially given I knew people still on the waitlist.

He told me that every year, if the school gets to a particular point on the wait list, they ask the admissions officers if there was anyone they felt that the system had failed and he had put my name forward and today, now the assistant registrar, he retired.

So long story short, it’s only because of the kindness of Bill Gregg (you’ll find him mentioned in my book’s acknowledgement too) that I’m a physician with a career I love, that I met my wife, and that I have my 3 wonderful children and I can never thank him enough.