When you are interacting with people who are suffering, concerned, in need of help, or just looking for someone to listen to them... and you really listen to them, you get a rare glimpse of humanity at its core.
Born and raised in Kitchener Ontario, a medium-sized city about an hour southwest of Toronto, Matthew Hintermayer is a 25 [almost 26!] year old in the MDCM-PhD combined program. Having just entered the second year of his studies, he will be transferring to the PhD portion of his program this winter.
Describe yourself in one sentence.Â
I’m never good at these types of questions, haha. I guess I’d just say that I am an inquisitive guy with a lot of interests. I like figuring out solutions to problems or puzzles, and [I have] a lot of interests because I apply this ‘problem-solving’ philosophy broadly in my life, usually excessively.
Tell us about your journey to med school.
Yeah, everyone has their own story about getting into med school, and it is pretty cool; when I’ve talked to other people about their path it’s always unique. So, I’ll try to summarize the unique parts of my path.
I guess growing up I was definitely not very interested in science class, at least not until grade 11 or 12. I spent most of my time playing music and was on track to become a sound engineer or potentially pursue a degree in music. I think it was when I was in grade 11 that I became really interested in psychology after taking an intro psych course at my high school. My sister was doing a psych degree at the time and got me a book called Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks, a neurologist and author. It’s funny, I could probably count the number of books that I had actually enjoyed reading on a single hand at that time, but this book was so interesting I just could not put it down! It was basically a collection of stories about interesting neuro concepts based on patients that Dr. Sacks had seen as a neurologist, so exploring really fundamental and philosophical questions about the brain by reflecting on unique neurological phenomena, like epilepsy, or migraine. At that point I remember having a sort of ‘Aha!’ moment, where I just wanted to learn more about the brain: how it worked and what happens when things in the brain go wrong.
I ended up getting into an arts psych program at Waterloo… Arts because I had not really taken the courses required to get into the science program. I wanted to switch to the science stream, and it was super intimidating starting university calc, physics, bio, and chem all at the same time when I had not taken any of these courses before. Looking at my classmates who had taken the high school courses in these subjects… you know, I worked my butt off to try and stay on top of things. I worked as hard as I could and ended up getting honours, which was a real confidence boost! I found myself loving science more and more, especially whenever there was a topic related to some clinical discovery. It was probably around halfway through my second year that I considered a career in medicine, so I started all that volunteering and exposure to medicine that is really necessary, really just trying to figure out if medicine was what I wanted to do… and it just became clearer over time that this is something I was immensely passionate about. I continued working away at this goal throughout my undergrad, and finally put together an application in my final year. I got an interview at one school and was waitlisted, but nothing came of it. I spent the next year working to make some money and strengthen my application for the next cycle. This time was more frustrating because I didn’t even get an interview. I actually had two students that I was tutoring get into med school that year, and although I was super excited for them it did feel a bit like getting lapped in a race!
My year working really showed me that I need to maintain my involvement with science… I really missed it, you know? So, I went on to do a masters in the neuroscience field. I was still interested in medicine for sure but was looking for some way I could contribute to medicine without needing an MD behind my name. I ended up doing a masters in a lab run by a clinician scientist who had an immense influence on me. Here I really feel like I developed my research skills, and absolutely loved being a part of the scientific process. Having patient experiences and observations inform really critical research questions made me really crave the clinician scientist sort of career. I applied to three MD-PhD programs, really giving it my all. I said [to myself] at the time, even though a part of me cringes whenever I hear about ‘fate’, ‘You know, if I don’t get in this time then it isn’t meant to be and I’ll have to accept that I won’t be a clinician.’ [But] I ended up getting only one interview - you guessed it, at McGill - and got in! All you need is one ‘yes,’ after all. Now I’m here and couldn’t be happier. I get to be a part of this awesome community in medicine, and get to do research at the Neuro, which is historically an incredibly important institution for neuroscience. It still feels like a dream at time[s] to be honest, and I feel so fortunate that healthcare is something I get to be a part of.
What has been your most impactful or memorable experience since starting medical school?Â
It’s got to be the patient interactions for me, for sure. The science is cool, and the social events and things are so critical, especially in first year. But the patient experience is something I really find myself motivated from. I can’t even pick one interaction, but whenever I’ve gotten to interview patients and just learn about their lives and circumstances, I’ve gained a lot from letting it impact me. I think this is why I really need to do the clinician-scientist route as opposed to pursuing research exclusively. I think it is no secret that any occupation in healthcare is tiring and can be very draining at times, and research is frustrating and draining for different reasons, and both really test your strength as a person. But when you are interacting with people who are suffering, concerned, in need of help, or just looking for someone to listen to them, and you really listen to them, you get a rare glimpse of humanity at its core. I’ve always found I gain a great amount of clarity when interacting with patients, and for me this is a great way to reorient and not lose sight of the ‘big picture’ of medicine and research, which for me is to participate in a tradition of listening to people and their ‘conflict’ whatever that might be, trying to understand the conflict with them, and helping people to reach their desired solution. I remember one time I was exhausted from classes and studying, and we had this patient interaction that was later at night, I think around 7pm, and I just felt like I was ready to fall asleep on the bus. But I ended up being the person in our group to interview this patient. I found it rejuvenating, and when I got home, I was much less concerned about all the little things that were stressing me out before then: the little details of school and life that you can lose yourself in if you aren’t careful. Medicine, research, for me it all starts with listening really critically to what people are telling you, so the patient interactions really have to be the most impactful experiences for me.
In your opinion, what has been the most impactful discovery in medicine or dentistry?
Oh man, there are so many discoveries that are critical in so many different ways. One discovery that really blew my mind in undergrad was Penfield establishing the somatotopic map of the brain, which actually happened right at the Neuro so it’s cool that I’ll be able to continue my studies here in research.
But if the question is impactful discovery my view is that this is undoubtedly vaccination. Infectious disease can really really easily flip the world on its head, as we are witnessing right now with SARS-CoV-2! I read an article, I think from Public Health or maybe the WHO - I’d have to check - that vaccines have prevented more deaths than any other health intervention in the past century. It’s so impactful because it prevents the disease from occurring, which is much better than treating someone who is already sick. Think about the impact of advancements in treating and preventing heart disease, cancer, and so on… Nope, not as much of an impact on human health as vaccines. Some diseases that otherwise would destroy our society are now completely preventable by a cheap, and safe injection that for many diseases are available for free, at least in Canada. Without vaccines, these other treatments for heart disease, cancer, and so on, while they would still have their places in a vaccine-deprived society, I think would become much less impactful because of how big a problem infectious disease would become. Still though, some of these large advances in heart disease and cancer involve vaccination. I’m pretty sure clean water is one of the only things that would be viewed as more impactful on this front, or maybe germ theory as a discovery. I’m sure there are rebuttals to this, but I’ll stick with my answer: vaccinations.
What is something little known about you?Â
In the past, people have been shocked when I tell them I am a ‘metal head’. I played guitar in a few bands in high school, fairly heavy screamo metal stuff, haha. I think people are really averse to metal music because of the yelling or screaming, but it’s kinda cool when you look at all of the subgenres there are of metal. You can, of course, get the really heavy stuff, but there are some pretty eclectic groups out there stretching metal music to cool places. One band I like called Between the Buried and Me, I saw them in concert last year and was blown away by their one song that was clearly very much influenced by jazz. It’s cool to see these things come together. So I’m a metal head, and maybe even a ‘metal advocate.’
What is the most "useless" talent you have?
The summer after my first year of undergrad I got this job at a meat factory… Pretty miserable stuff for me to be honest, but I couldn’t find full time work in things I was applying to and needed to make money so I did my best to tough it out. Never worked harder in school than that Fall when I was done with that job, haha. Anyways, I had this job where my task was to clean this massive gymnasium-sized room that all the ‘meat stuff’ went through. Basically, I had to fill this massive room with sanitizer foam, let it sit, and then clean up all the foam. I did this on my own, basically with a HAZMAT suit on since there was meat everywhere. I couldn’t hear much, and I didn’t have anyone to interact with. After 8 hours of this every day for a few weeks, I found myself going a bit nuts. One day I got the song ‘One Week’ by the Barenaked Ladies stuck in my head but I didn’t know the words. I looked up the words on my break and began practicing this song, which has some pretty fast and random phrases in it. By the end of the summer I could sing my way through almost the entire song, except for three lines of this really fast part I could never get right… Seriously, I had all summer and could NEVER get this single part right… So I guess the ‘talent’ is that I can sing most of this song which is pretty hard, but I can never get through these three lines meaning I can’t [even] justify bragging about it… Useless!
What is the funniest way that you’ve been injured?Â
Yeah, this is pretty funny, to me at least. I remember when I took my driver’s test to get my full G-license. I passed the test and it was totally fine and needed to walk into the drive test center to get my temporary license. I got that yellow sheet of paper where the examiner writes down all the stuff you do wrong and was reading it. There was only a half point taken off for ‘not noticing hazard to the left while driving,’ and I’m thinking ‘I didn’t miss anything, I’m super observant! What a ridiculous point to take off.’ Well as I’m reading this, while walking, I actually walked into a tree, which surprised me so I ended up falling backward. I turned around to the instructor still sitting in the car, now laughing at me. I was so embarrassed and remember looking back at the paper and the half point taken off and just thinking… ‘Alright, fine. That seems fair.’