Posted on Jan. 2: Amazing students, amazing stories: Melinda Gillies
[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/GilliesMelinda.jpg” caption=”Melinda Gillies”]Three inspiring and outstanding McMaster students were featured in the December issue of the McMaster Review. This is the first of three profiles we will feature on the Daily News. It is an example of how students make the world a better place and who serve as shining examples of students as socially responsible citizens.
These are stories of inspiration, stories that give us all a reason to smile.
Melinda Gillies
Age: 38
Academic Program: MD Program
Career goal: Surgeon
At age 29, she spent most of her time watching TV and smoking cigarettes.
Today, she's a full-fledged, first-year medical student.
Melinda Gillies' journey from the couch to medical school grew out of two traumatic and life-changing experiences and a message in a novel.
She was just two when, in an accident at the playground, her cheek was slashed open, her nose and cheekbone broken. She has endured nine trips to the hospital since then for plastic surgery. Today the scar is all but invisible on her radiant, smiling face. But her memories of being called names like Scarface in grade school are still fresh.
The sudden and shocking death of her 28-year-old brother in 1992, just four short weeks after he was married, left her searching and asking questions of herself. Jamie died on the golf course, struck by lightening while playing a round of golf with colleagues from work. The tragedy left her wondering about the world and her purpose in it. It occurred to her that unlike those who assisted her brother at the golf course, she didn't know CPR. If she had been with Jamie at the golf course, she couldn't have helped him.
So Gillies, a high-school dropout, took a course in CPR and then First Aid.
And she read QB VII, a novel by Leon Uris. A passage in the novel changed her life. In the novel, two female physicians imprisoned in a concentration camp during the Holocaust discuss their dilemma. They have been asked to assist the Nazis with experiments at the camp. One physician says to the other: “Maria . . . it is not possible that any of us are going to live and get out of this camp. In the end the Germans will kill us because they cannot allow the outside world to know what they are doing. The only thing that is left for us, is to behave for the short time we have left, as human beings . . . and as physicians . . . we cannot leave these people to suffer alone.
“Think for yourself . . . act for others, after all, the only thing that will save mankind is if enough people live their lives for someone or something other than themselves.”
The message was one of inspiration for Melinda Gillies, who virtually got up off the couch and began her journey to med school with night courses at Jarvis High School in Toronto.
She has not wasted any time since. During the four years she spent earning her undergraduate nursing degree, Gillies worked tirelessly with and for those both around her and in the broader community, and earned a President's Award of Excellence in Student Leadership.
She developed a program to teach CPR on a volunteer basis to grade school children in Dundas. She organized and oversaw the delivery of thousands of pieces of clothing to the homeless in Hamilton as clothing co-ordinator for the McMaster Nursing Student Outreach Clinic for the Homeless, an initiative begun by fellow nursing students Patrick Mahoney and Greg Reilly. She developed a peer assistance program for fellow nursing students, and today still lends a friendly ear and comforting words to second and third-year students who seek her out.
“I like it when someone says 'Can you help me with this?' and I can! There's a lot of personal satisfaction that comes from being able to help someone else learn what they really want to do,” she says. She admits to an affinity for teaching, and thinks that she'd like to work in a clinical setting after medical school, perhaps as a mentor and student tutor.
She continues to give back as a first-year medical student. In addition to lending an ear to nursing students, she's an editor for a new project, the McMaster Medical Journal, continues to raise money for Mac Soc through the CPR program, and serves on the medical school's Community Service Committee.
She faces two more years of medical school and six years in residency. It's a future she embraces and relishes. It will provide her with, in her own words, an opportunity to make a difference for each individual, each patient who walks through her door.
She is seriously considering a career in reconstructive, cardiac or vascular surgery and she also enjoys family and internal medicine. “Going abroad to do this kind of work would certainly be interesting, but I think I can make a difference here at home, helping a child born with a cleft palate or without an ear or a burn victim who is facing years of surgery.”
Her friends and her father, Archie, are amazed at and inspired by the path she has taken. Gillies, herself, has gained inspiration from others, particularly nursing instructor Heather Arthur.
But Gillies view of herself and her contributions is more down to earth. “I'm just an example to other women that they can do anything they want with their lives.”
Age: 23
Academic Program: Civil Engineering & Management
Age: 21
Academic Program: Honours Linguistics
Career goal: Physician for Disadvantaged Populations
Career goal: International Work (Sustainability)
