It’s tough to say what I wish I knew [before medical school], you know? If I knew that “thing”, then it wouldn’t have made my experience how it is. If I knew that “thing” it might’ve not made it a learning experience and I would’ve missed out on something else. I don’t think I would actually mention anything here.
Brought up in the borough of Pierrefonds, Montreal, Rami is a 22-year-old medical student from the Class of 2022.
Describe yourself in one sentence.
I think I am someone who likes to make people happy and bring joy to others, and another part of me that is quite important is that I am unflappable —I like dealing with stressful situations.
Tell us about your journey to med school.
As long as I can remember, I always wanted to go into veterinary medicine. I love animals and lived with animals all my life and thus for me, vet med was always my “go-to.” However, it was only in the 3rd semester of my CEGEP that I started thinking of human medicine because I started volunteering with disabled individuals and working at the Veterans Hospital at Saint-Anne. I loved the human connection; it was lots of fun. I really think that I have an ease with people, and I find that I want to use that in my career later on.
What has been your most impactful or memorable experience since starting medical school?
So, yeah, I was thinking about that one. It wasn't an easy one because you know, you go through med school, you see a lot of things, and putting your finger on one aspect is really tough. But for me, it had to come down to my summer internship in Akwesasne. It's an indigenous community. It is split into the territories. It's one reserve, but it's split between Ontario, Quebec and the US, so New York State. So you can just imagine the kerfuffle that is happening over there. I lived so many experiences in one month there, I was up, down, sad and happy. But above all else, the one experience that touched me the most was when I was following a home care nurse. She took me around to see plenty of patients, patients who couldn't go to the hospital to get their care. So she was there for them. And then we stumbled upon a home of a twenty-two year old who was about my age, in his home. And I mean, it's tough for me to even call it home. It was a place that was littered with food stains on the walls. There were holes in the ceilings. God knows how they got there. And the poor man was … young. And he was on the floor, kind of crippled, unable to speak, unable to respond. And he crawled his way up to his couch, which was the only furniture he had left, from what I could see as I entered the room. And I was standing there in shock; this place was scary, genuinely that's sad to say. I was genuinely scared, even though I wanted to help. At that moment, I felt helpless. The nurse obviously had already seen him before. He was someone she regularly went to see. And she explained to me that this young man had mental illnesses, he had schizophrenia, and he was also using illicit drugs. But also whenever he would take his medications, he would just take them all in one shot and end up in this vegetative state, which I saw him in. So that was a very memorable moment.
But talking about Akwesasne and all this, whenever someone asks me about that, I always like to mention that Akwesasne was a beautiful place. I don't want people to have this image of indigenous people like that because it's not. The people over there were inspiring. They're nice. They welcomed me with open arms and they were the people that really looked to the past to see the land they had, the waters that would feed them, the lands that would raise their children. They just had this abundance of life despite having seen that being taken away from them. I saw that in the way they described it and in the way they are looking forward to the future. I saw that in the way they cared for the different patients. I saw that in the way they lived their lives. This is a quote from someone in the community, they said, “There are those that took the heartache and the pain and kind of crawled into themselves and broke down and you have others that took it to motivate themselves and uplift the community” and definitely you do see that much more often. And so I think that was the whole experience in a nutshell, with those ups and downs and going to see nature with them to pick up sweetgrass, which is a traditional plant that they use. And actually I have it right there [points to the wall behind him]. It's, you know, all those things. Those little things. And they seem completely trivial. But definitely they were the most impactful, memorable. I don't know what to say. Like, I can't put a pin in it, but it was incredible.
In your opinion, what has been the most impactful discovery in medicine or dentistry?
I was thinking about this and I was actually talking to my roommate thinking about this one. We’re going through different things; IV fluids, hip arthroplasty, I don’t know what. And then we’re thinking, is this impactful, to your day to day life? Is it how many people were saved? Because obviously antibiotics, you can put it up there. I ended up picking cataract surgery, and I think it’s going to be a popular one. I find it beautiful to be able to give sight to someone again, in such a quick and efficient way. And you can do so many in a year! I remember when I was shadowing an ophthalmologist and he did 46 cataract surgeries in one day, going through two operating rooms, back and forth. Basically what was slowing him down was how quickly they cleaned their rooms. I find it impressive to have had such a big innovation when it comes to eyesight.
What is something little known about you?
At the peak of my “Zoo”, and I’ll call it my “Zoo”, because I lived with a lot of animals. At the peak, I had 18 animals. And the breakdown, oh it’s not that crazy when you hear the breakdown! So the breakdown is 14 turtles, Egyptian tortoises, (they’re like those little things, they don’t get bigger than this, they’re really cute land tortoises), 3 dogs (little dogs, so they are not like huge mammoths), and 1 parrot. Today, we have less turtles, because we gave some away, to different people, given that they’re an endangered species, to Zookeepers who I was close with from working at the actual Ecomuseum Zoo. They’re taking care of them, seeing how they can do a bit of research on them and help their habitat. Now we have 2 dogs, different dogs, and the same parrot! So, little Mango, still there, squeaking.
So does your parrot speak?
Yeah! So, funny story about that one. He loves me more, I swear to God he loves me more. He loves me like you have no clue. I take him with my hand, I flip him, my girlfriend Corinne can attest to this. But he says my brothers’ name… And there’s a story behind that one. My brother would live in the basement while I was upstairs next to my parents. I would wake up at the same time as my dad, because he woke up and he was next to me. But my brother, he slept in, he never wanted to wake up, and he was in the basement far away from everybody. So in the morning, my mom had to scream: “Farid, Farid!” And the bird now screams in the same way! So first, he would scream in a very calm and soothing way, then “Farid?” like are you there? And then the last one is the real scream, I don’t want to do it for your ears, but yeah, he screams my brother’s name.
What is one experience that you have had that you feel others can learn from?
Okay guys, I didn’t go serious on this one. This one I felt like making it light. You know, honestly, everybody has to do a marathon of watching Lord of the Rings, okay? I don’t care what you say. I don’t care what you think. Once you live through that, you will never become a couch potato again. The pain you have to go through while watching all three... they are beautiful movies, I love them, but they are just so long that you come out from there and you are like “I survived”. That’s my little five cents of a fun experience in my opinion.
What is something you wish you knew before entering Med/Dent school?
Honestly, I don’t know! I thought of this one for quite a bit. It’s tough to say what I wish I knew [beforehand], you know? If I knew that “thing”, then it wouldn’t have made my experience how it is. If I knew that “thing” it might’ve not made it a learning experience and I would’ve missed out on something else. I don’t think I would actually mention anything here. I think you go in with what you know, and there’s no wishing about what you knew. It’s just how it is and everybody lives the experience a different way and that’s why we have good memories at the end. Those screw ups, those little things you go “shucks”, it makes for funny stories in the end.
For upper-year medical/dental students, do you have any advice you would like to give the incoming medical/dental year &/or the lower-year students?
This one is super cheesy, like you don't get more cheese than this. Anyways, if you're lactose intolerant be careful! Life is serious man, just have fun, come on! I keep saying this, I said this in my orientation speech [Rami was the MSS President from 2019-2020, and gave an orientation welcome speech to all incoming Med - 1s] and I'll say it again, live your best life! Four months of Summer, yeah sure it sucks that I can’t do clerkship right now, I would have been in the hospital. But silver-linings are all over the place. I get to see my friends, I get to see my family, I get to have fun. I get to actually remember what it's like to have a lot of free time.
What’s the most “useless” talent you have?
Note: The above is a direct transcript from a live interview with Rami Habib conducted by the Resonance Humans team.