Three students from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine share their stories
Posted by John Borst on Sep 28, 2016
Katherine Campbell, Director, Planning, Integration and Service Quality at the Dryden Regional Health Centre (DRHC) introduced three medical students from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) Virginia McEwan, Krista Dowhos, and Lauren Turner.
All three are third-year students and provided the club with a background story on their journey on the road to becoming a doctor. Although all are our speakers are women about 40 percent of the NOSM students are men.
Virginia McEwan
Virginia McEwan grew up in rural Alberta where she studied nursing and worked as a nurse for Health Canada in Northern Ontario. This included two and a half years at Round Lake where she met our current Rotary president Carl Eisner.
Virginia spent another year and a half in Nunavut, after Round Lake. There she was encouraged to enter medicine even though she initially considered becoming nurse- practitioner, however, she applied to NOSM and was accepted.
When it came time to considering a placement for her clerkship, after speaking to other students and physicians, she decided on Dryden as it had a good work -life balance as she is also Mother of a 15 month-old child.
Lauren Turner
Lauren Turner also grew up in Thunder Bay and went to LU where she completed a degree in psychology.
She wanted to work in mental health field and attended NOSM to be near family and friends.
Lauren said that she chose Dryden for the same reason as the other students.
Krista Dowhos
Krista Dowhos grew up in Thunder Bay. She said Dryden has been very welcoming right from the start. She chose the town because she heard from other students that DRHC was a nurturing environment.
Dowhos went straight into the NOSM after completing her undergraduate program. She initially thought she might do research, however, eventually decided on medicine instead.
Krista is also a competitive dance teacher and loves the outdoors.