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Hope springs eternal

By Christine Ward, BA'89

Dr. Supriya Singh, MD’14, became a very different doctor during a split-second last year when a man crashed his motorcycle in front of her in Tanzania. Then a fourth-year medical student, Dr. Singh was in the East African country as part of a final year medical elective.

“He was a mangled mess,” she remembers. “We brought him into the hospital and tried to start an IV, but he was so broken beyond repair, there was very little we could do.”

With no blood products, one antibiotic and only Tylenol to manage pain, Dr. Singh and her colleagues had relatively nothing to work with. “I realized we can’t help everyone, but I also knew if he had been at Victoria (Hospital in London, Ontario), he would have gotten surgery immediately and been walking out in a few months,” said Dr. Singh.

Heartbroken, exhausted and frustrated beyond her limits, Dr. Singh left the hospital, collapsed on a nearby rock and started to cry. Soon, a young boy sat down beside her. “He told me not to cry in Swahili. I was there to help people like him and he was the one comforting me. These people never lose hope,” Dr. Singh said, amazed.

In that moment, Dr. Singh says her life changed. “It’s such a different world in which we practise, here in Canada. But the compassion and empathy I got from seeing such hope in the face of suffering inspired me. It fuelled a fire in me to never give up trying to help make a difference.”

Dr. Singh chose to devote a portion of her career to international health care. Now a second-year orthopaedics resident at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry, she plans to practise in Canada, while continuing to work to improve the health care system in Tanzania.

Her efforts were recognized at graduation in 2014 when she was awarded the Dr. Rob Tingley Class of ’95 Developing Countries Award. The award was established by the Medicine Class of ’95 in memory of Schulich Medicine graduate Dr. Tingley, who spent time learning and practising in Kenya before his death in 2004. The fund recognizes the international efforts of two fourth-year medical students a year.

“Rob was the kind of guy who would give and give,” remembers classmate and friend Jeff Blackmer, MD’95, vice-president of medical professionalism with the Canadian Medical Association. “When he died, we wanted a way to honour his legacy. An award linked to his international work was a no-brainer.” Since establishing the award in 2004, the Class of ’95 has continued to invest, growing the endowment to more than $75,000. To support the increasing number of Schulich Medicine students who aim to travel abroad, they are planning another fundraising appeal this fall in honour of their 20th reunion.

Blackmer remembers Dr. Tingley as part of the pioneering wave of medical students who were interested in global health in the 1990s. “The landscape has changed,” he acknowledged. “Today’s medical students don’t see their social accountability strictly in terms of Canadian patients; they look at global medicine as a vital part of being a practising physician in Canada.”

Dr. Singh agrees. She’s using her award to help launch a Canadian non-profit organization to improve the health and education needs of Tanzanian street youth, like the young boy she met last year.

“Winning this award inspired me. I’m so grateful that someone felt I was like Dr. Tingley, that I care about people and want to make a difference. It’s encouraging me to keep going and to keep fighting for these people. It’s how we pay it forward.”