2. Balance and Support; Medical Student Years [Updated 2015 11]

In my last entry I left off referring to the supportive environment that I quickly found myself in when I was in medical school. Not only did I find good friends in my class, and graduate physicians who performed a mentoring role; I found a supportive environment in many ways in a church congregation that I once again found myself a part of.

I also mentioned in the previous contribution that I had learned something of the importance of balance in life. This extended to the belief not only that one should be doing things that amounted to service within the community; I should also keep in touch with my creative side and nature to balance the rigorous demands of medical school. I might have overdone that. However, I lived to tell the tale; I did graduate with my MD 4 years later.

I served in that church first of all with the choir. I learned to sing a natural tenor when I was entering adolescence and have been fortunate to sing in a number of very good choirs. I had sung in this church choir when I had lived in Winnipeg earlier. At this point they were short of a conductor and with my musical background (I also knew how to play piano to a certain extent) I was asked to lead the choir! Believe it or not, I think I actually skipped a few medical school classes to cram in some music conducting classes at the college I had graduated from 5 years previously (If you are keeping track of years here you might wonder where the 5 came from - remember, I had written of actually working for one full year as a nursing orderly before starting university and ended up putting in another year after graduation, waiting for my ultimate acceptance into medical school). After working on one Christmas performance with this choir though, I threw in the towel. Or was it because they had found somebody more qualified by that time? I know they did at some point because I sang under him.

But I later found myself as one of the leaders of the Young Adult Group in this congregation and for several years also served as member and ultimately chairperson of the Music Committee, which oversaw things like hiring the choir conductor. That was a learning experience when it came to finding out all about pipe organs! Our church had purchased a building that had a pipe organ in it and the instrument needed repair. What did we know about pipe organs?

The supportive group of physicians I mentioned, which crossed all specialty lines including family physicians? That was the local chapter of the Christian Medical Society. It was lead at the time by Dr. Alan Ronald, who became a personal mentor and friend. Some of you may recognize his name in conjunction with starting one of the first Infectious Disease Units in a teaching hospital, which later morphed, with the help of my classmate Frank Plummer and others, into a world-class HIV/AIDS program with its connections in Africa, and ultimately led to Winnipeg's acquiring the National Virology Laboratory.

We were welcomed into these physicians' homes on a monthly basis for sessions that usually included food, always good for a hungry bachelor medical student, as well as a presentation or discussion on some topic relevant to medicine. There was even an annual fall retreat at a Camp on Red Rock Lake (more good food, prepared by staff, even better) in the Canadian Shield, which was a wonderful getaway place for some of the students. I liked it too much one fall; I was the last to leave and my car battery was dead from arriving late the opening evening and forgetting to turn off my lights!  In those pre-cell phone days, I was fortunate the local payphone had not been turned off for the winter and I was able to call a 'tow truck' to come and give me a 'boost.' 

Along with this, there was also a student chapter of CMDS. After a couple of years, I found myself as its president. This meant arranging monthly meetings to discuss certain topics or have guest speakers, usually in a side room off the cafeteria at one of the hospitals over lunch. Some of the physicians from the group mentioned previously were only too glad to be our resource at times. Then, come spring of my first year in medicine, Dr. Ronald was very instrumental in my being sent, all-expenses-paid, to the CMDS Student Conference, that year held near San Francisco in a mountain retreat.

I even found time to go to the odd concert and actually had student-rate season tickets for the Manitoba Theatre Center my first year in medicine. You may wonder how I financed this? I guess I had some savings from my work. I got a student loan as well. In those days, of course, tuition was less than $500 a year and one could live on less than $4000 a year quite well (The maximum student loan then was $3500). And I was driving a car I had purchased new two years earlier, thanks to a kindly bank manager. My residence for year 1 was literally not much more than a 3rd floor attic garret in walking distance from the medical school though. Life was good! I was even improving my self taught guitar playing skills and beginning to write songs!