Program: MPT/PhD
Hometown: Markham, Ontario
What attracted you to your field of study or research?
As a kinesiology student, I was always fascinated by the diverse application of exercise. Even though I played a lot of volleyball growing up and saw a lot of sports injuries in the volleyball community, I am particularly interested in and passionate about how exercise can be applied as medicine, especially for people with complex medical conditions such as cancer. From this passion, I decided to apply for the joint Master of Physical Therapy / PhD Program offered by the Department of Physical Therapy.
I am excited by the unique opportunity to be simultaneously trained as a physiotherapist and researcher in rehabilitation sciences, where the principals of exercise and medicine are truly married. My future skills can be applied to touch people’s lives in both the clinical setting, and also to explore novel ideas to improve the current practices in rehabilitation for cancer patients.
What excites you about the upcoming year?
This upcoming year will be when our clinical practice skills are truly emphasized in our training. Most of the time will be dedicated to clinical placements and classroom time focusing on clinical skills. It will be exciting to see how the immense amount of knowledge we’ve gained in our first year will be applied for patients we’ll be seeing in our placements and in our future jobs. This will also be the year where I will be focusing more on my PhD studies, and it will be exciting to see how our freshly learned clinical knowledge can be incorporated into research through the lens of both a research and clinicical trainee.
What’s one thing we might be surprised to learn about you?
I love math, physics, and chemistry! Before kinesiology, I was enrolled in an electrical engineering and a life sciences program. I really like nerding out on theories of mathematics and physics, and try to incorporate that into my thinking as a physiotherapy student. Also, although orthopedic injuries are interesting, I’m very interested in how physiotherapy can be applied to cardiorespiratory and neurological rehabilitation and health. Before starting the MPT program, I, myself, didn’t know how strong the role of physiotherapists played in those settings!
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
In 5 years, I hope to have completed the MPT/PhD program, and see myself starting to work as a physiotherapist in hospital where I can actively practice my clinical skills and contribute to the scientific community in cancer and exercise research.
Best piece of advice: Follow your passion, and do what you want to do. If you do what you love, everything else will come with it!
Last vacation destination: Los Angeles, California! I just came back actually. A much needed break after a hard working first year, and before starting the second year!