I am a doctor—that is something I have wanted to say since I was diagnosed with cancer as a kid.
My name is Raphaël Nahar Rivière and I trained as a medical student at the University of Ottawa. I will be starting at the University of Toronto this coming fall, as a resident physician in Anesthesiology. My path to medicine started when I was young. Shortly after we arrived in Canada from Bangladesh, I had recurring bone pains and fevers. After a referral to SickKids, my mom took me to see a rheumatologist, who gave us the devastating news: I had Ewing’s Sarcoma. After that, the chemotherapy, bone transplant and everything else changed my life as a seven year-old boy.
Dr. Raphaël Rivière (MD2019)
My cancer diagnosis was particularly hard on my family. Over the years we became estranged from our father as he failed to cope with the realities of having a sick child in a foreign country. Eventually, he left. My mom was made of tougher stuff. She became a full time caregiver and later worked exhausting retail jobs. This was a starkly different reality from what she had envisaged as an aspiring Anthropology professor back in Bangladesh. Despite these trials and tribulations of being a single mother, her indefatigable optimism inspired me to push myself.
I studied hard and went on to earn the TD scholarship, which helped me through my studies during my bachelor’s at Trinity College, University of Toronto. Following my bachelor’s I was accepted to the University of Ottawa for medical school in the French stream. This was my ideal choice because I had become somewhat of a Francophile during an internship in France and wanted desperately to maintain my proficiency while pursuing a career in medicine. These skills would ultimately open doors for me to go on a medical mission to Bénin, a francophone country in West Africa. In Bénin, our team of Canadian physicians, residents, medical students, nurses and pharmacists served over 1000 patients at an impoverished rural village. During that time, I resuscitated my first neonate born to an eclamptic mother, and had the honour of naming another newborn, on whose mother I performed a spinal. These experiences were transformative and inspired me to ultimately choose Anesthesiology for my future—a specialty which affords unique, life saving skills to its students.
I can still remember playing Pokémon Stadium in my bed on the 8th floor at SickKids Hospital, as if it were yesterday. This journey to become a doctor has been so long, and at many times challenging. I am like any other student. I grumble, cry and laugh about how much there is to learn and wonder if I will ever be good enough to give my patients the best care they could possibly get. However, my experiences have taught me that life is a precious opportunity and that it should not be forsaken. I am so very grateful to my friends, family, mentors and most certainly, all the doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and medical personnel without whom I would not be able to serve as a physician today.
This year my mom plans to finish her PhD at U of T–something she always dreamed of completing before I got sick. I guess it’s somewhat of a coincidence that I’ll be getting my doctorate too, and we will be graduating together.
CBC, Canada
