I really don't feel like I’ve gotten any older. But yet, on another level, you see people around you that you know are getting older and changing, you see students of yours who now are colleagues There was a time I was by far the youngest person in my department, I'm now one of the older ones. It's interesting how time doesn't wait. But on the other hand, I know I'm in better shape now than I was when I was 25. I certainly don't feel 50, although I'm not sure what feeling 50 should feel like. Seeing other people around me, people I went to school with, family members, or even aunts and uncles, and seeing that everyone's getting older. I realized, "Okay, I'm getting older as well. Yes, I see the grey hair," But I don't feel like I'm older.. I would say I feel 25 to 30, especially now.

Maybe if I had exercised at 25, the way I do now, maybe I would have felt better at 25. I don't know. But certainly, when I was 25, I was overweight, I was a couch potato, I certainly didn't feel like I had any energy, always felt tired all the time. Whereas now, I feel better than I did then. I was motivated by a desire to lose weight and a desire to look better, more so than, at least initially, a love of physical activity. But if you would have said when I was 25 that at age 44 I would've qualified for the Boston Marathon, I would have said, "Not on your life." Like I can't run 100 meters, never mind the idea of running 26 miles. Not at all. Paul and I both qualified for the Boston Marathon the same year. We both ran the Boston Marathon in 2014, which was the year after the bombing. Even though it wasn't a great race for us personally, it was still an amazing experience to be there, just to see how the city comes together. And, also, there is something really cool about having a million people lining the route. They cheer everyone on, doesn’t matter if you're the elite lead runner or if you're last of the pack. They're just an incredibly supportive crowd, and it's just an amazing atmosphere. Paul and I were very lucky to able to qualify the same year. and to run it together.

The most challenging part of my journey was losing my parents. A lot of it was emotional and having to grow up in a very short period of time and I'm, actually, the proudest of the fact that despite the setback , that I was able to push through and that I still was able to graduate because, at that point, it wasn't clear whether or not I was going to make it. I'd like to think that if I had taken time off I would have gone back, but it's just you never know. So I'm just really glad that I was able to push through as tough as it was. I suppose it has to do with my personality and the fact that I'm just kind of matter of fact sometimes. I’ll say "Oh, this is the way it is. Okay. We'll just push ahead." But when I look back on it now, at times I can say , "Oh my goodness. How was I able to, actually, do that?"

When I was 25, I had just moved to Winnipeg. I was starting to meet people. I was starting to get immersed in work and things here. if I could, tell one thing to my younger self, it would be to relax, that things will work out. Sometimes I was so driven and so concerned about whether things would work out that I might have missed out on things because of it. In fact, when I'm talking to medical students and residents now, I'm also very a big proponent of seeking a work-life harmony. I don't think you can really call it work-life balance because, particularly, in medicine, it's never balanced, but really to make sure that you carve time out for yourself, that you do things that you enjoy. Right now, for me, that's things like running . It’s going to be different things for different people, but I really think to take the time and to develop yourself as an individual, as well as to develop your career. So if I was going to go back, that's what I would tell my younger self.

I have hope for the younger generation of physicians. I think there has been a lot of attention paid in training now to trying to develop those life skills. So medicine, for example, the stuff I learned in medical school probably became obsolete probably a year or two after I graduated. What you learn is how to manage huge amounts of information, and how to swim through that or wade through that to actually get the information that you need. Management of information has become in some ways more challenging, but it some ways it's become easier with computers and with the internet.But you still have to know how to manage it, and you still have to know where to look for it. With that in mind, I think that medical schools have become a lot smarter in terms of trying to provide more of a balanced approach. It's not so much about rote memorization anymore. It's more about how do you approach a topic? How do you research it? How do you present that information to your patients? Even though you do have to have a core knowledge, but medicine is all about lifelong learning. And you can't stop learning.

We were out in Quebec on the weekend, and one of Paul's siblings actually asked me, "So what are your plans for retirement?" And I was taken back by the question a little bit, but then I realized retirement is something that one has to plan for, and to move forward. I'm probably like a lot of physicians in that it would be difficult to retire completely, but what I would foresee happening 10 to 15 years from now is that a gradual slow-down and more into lighter activities, but still related to medicine, and then retire.

To really to live life, and enjoy life, don't put things off forever. I think there's sometimes, in my own life where I say, "Well, if I only do this, then I will do this." The one thing that what happened to my parents taught me is that nobody actually knows how much time you have on this earth. Even though you'd like to think you'll live for a long time, you don't actually know that. So you need to live life now and live life to the best of your ability. That doesn't mean you're not going to have responsibilities or things that you have to do. It’s really important to put that into balance. Because at different stages of your life, different things are going to take priority both in your professional life and in your personal life. But it's a matter of working things through and not ignoring one completely for the other.

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A Tedx Winnipeg talk

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