"The conveyor belt of need is turning much faster ... than our capacity to keep up."
What wakes me up I the morning is, if only there was one more day in the week, we could do even more. And I think that that also is what keeps me going. The conveyor belt of need is turning much faster on many occasions than our capacity to keep up. So I wake up early in the morning trying to figure out how we can collectively work smarter because we can’t work much harder or faster. So it’s a matter of keeping up. Those are the things that wake me up in the morning, wondering and worrying about what the day will bring and can I keep up with the needs and the challenges.

"I directed all my application efforts towards the program that served the most underdeveloped community I could find in Canada."
I was having a bit of trouble, as all medical students do, deciding between specialties and family practice and I came across the four principles of family practice in my research. One is that you are a skilled clinician. Second is that the doctor-patient relationship is central to your practice. Third is that you are a resource to a defined population. And the fourth is that you practice in a community and are part of a community. I tried to look back over the four years of medical school at what I found the most rewarding, in terms of what I could do or what I got back, and what I realized was that it really was about the last two principles of family medicine. I then applied to family medicine and directed all my application efforts towards the program that served the most underdeveloped community that I could find in Canada, which was Vancouver’s downtown east side.

"I’ve always wanted to work with my own community."
I’m a member of this community. I identify as lesbian, or queer sometimes, and I’ve always wanted to work with my own community. Some of us are very visible and recognizable, but many are not, and then why does it matter that we have to be acknowledged as who we are? Well, because there’s a whole life that goes with that, really. And particularly when you’re talking about relationships of trust, relationships where a certain amount of intimacy is very beneficial, knowing, let’s say, a doctor, a nurse, a counselor, if you can’t tell them who you have relationships with, what are your aspirations in life, what you’ve struggled with, if you can’t talk about issues like whether you’ve had children or not and the context of that, it’s very hard to have a genuine relationship, for either one of you. There just isn’t really a sense of genuineness. And how well can they really serve you when they don’t really know who you are?

"I honestly believe that social isolation is everyone’s responsibility."
I refuse to believe that we live in a society that neglects its elderly citizens. And when I see an older person who has contributed so much to society and has worked so hard their whole lives, and all they need is a little support to keep going, and they’re cast aside and they’re completely overlooked for many reasons—because we live in a society that really values youth instead of the elderly and we live in a society where our health-care system is completely overburdened, so it’s so easy to overlook these older people. So for me, I have such a passion to see that change and to be part of a movement where we’re building communities that really care for their elderly citizens. And I honestly believe that social isolation is everyone’s responsibility. It’s not just governments or the health-care services. It’s really neighbours and community groups and family and faith communities. It’s really everyone’s responsibility to look after the elderly in our society.

"The degree that I got made the assumption the you were going to work for social change."

I had a very unique exposure. The degree that I got when I was at U.C. Berkeley made the assumption that you were going to work for social change, so a lot of our training was about not whether you’re going to work for social change, but how are you going to work for social change, figuring out what you were going to do. It was a required course for our major. This course trotted out people who were working for social change in different ways in their life. There was the straight and narrow lawyer during the day, nine to five, and then in the evening they would do all their advocacy work. And then there was the lawyer who was part of an organization that only worked for social change. So we got exposed to all sorts of people who were working for social change, either through their work, after their work, a combination of both, and they were models for us to see. And then at the end of the course, we had to figure out what we wanted to do. Depending on who you related to, you could figure out what model is right for you, and it was so painful, but it really forced us to think about what we wanted to do with our lives. It was fabulous so it was the best course I ever had.