Dr. Michael Tarrant Scholarship

University of Calgary

Kayla fitzpatrick

Kayla Fitzpatrick was born and raised in Fort McMurray, Alberta, where most of her family still resides, including her parents, siblings, and 41 first and second cousins. She is grateful for the love and support of her community and large family, which have shaped the person she is today. As the first in her family to become a physician, Kayla feels immense pride and privilege in having this opportunity. She shares her success with her parents, Sean and Michelle, and is proud to honour the sacrifices they made to help her achieve her dream of becoming a doctor. 

Growing up in Fort McMurray, she had no physician mentors, and most of her peers and relatives pursued trades. Kayla takes great pride in being from a northern remote community, in not being a “traditional medical student,” and in paving the way for her family and others to see that it is possible to pursue their dreams—even when the odds are stacked against you. She witnessed firsthand the challenges of accessing healthcare from a remote location—whether it was a premature cousin requiring NICU care, an ailing grandparent, or, most significantly, when her older sister was diagnosed with cancer in her 20s. Her sister’s diagnosis required her family to relocate to Edmonton for three months to receive treatment. These experiences shaped Kayla’s deep commitment to rural/remote medicine, giving her a personal understanding of the barriers faced by those living far from urban centres. 

Kayla is also a Mi’kmaq, French, and Irish woman, though she was not always aware of her Indigenous ancestry or that her great-grandmother was a First Nations woman. Over the past decade, Kayla has prioritized learning about her heritage and developed a deep passion for Indigenous health. Through reconnecting with her ancestry, she has sought mentorship from Elders and been profoundly influenced by their teachings. Her Elders in northern Alberta have welcomed and made her feel at home, offering a sense of connection she had never felt before. She was honoured to help implement programs where new mothers and Elders participated in ceremonies and cultural activities aimed at fostering relationships and preserving culture, language, and tradition in Wood Buffalo. Before medical school, Kayla worked for several years in community-based research and Indigenous health initiatives. She currently serves as a Medical Student Representative on the Alberta Medical Association Indigenous Health Committee. 

Her dedication to rural medicine is also rooted in the significant gaps she has observed in healthcare for Indigenous peoples, particularly Indigenous women. Her goal is to continue learning and to use her knowledge to help close these gaps. She understands that providing care in Indigenous communities requires more than medical knowledge and showing up to a health centre—it requires building meaningful relationships, spending time in the community, and demonstrating patience, humility, and a willingness to learn. 

Kayla’s favourite role in life is being an aunty, and in her spare time she enjoys spending time outdoors with her dog Annie, practicing yoga, and reading. She hopes to give back to her hometown and to the rural, remote, and reserve communities that have welcomed and taught her throughout her journey.

University of Alberta

virginia layton

Virginia grew up on a farm in Grassy Lake, Alberta — in a home where the doors didn’t have locks and neighbors shared tools without needing to ask. Life was tough but deeply rooted in community and resilience. There were long days that started before sunrise, and problems that got fixed with duct tape and determination. That’s the kind of grit she sees in rural patients now. Maybe it’s the respect she has for them, or the feeling of home that she craves, but ultimately, she is drawn to practicing medicine in those same kinds of places. 

She has spent most of her life surrounded by people who put others before themselves. They carry on through pain, weather, and worry without complaint. Virginia recognizes that strength because it has shaped her. Working in rural healthcare has only deepened her appreciation for it. In places like High River and Medicine Hat, she had the privilege of not just performing echocardiograms but being a trusted presence, often the most immediate access patients had to cardiac care. 

Over the years, Virginia also had the opportunity to use her background in ultrasound to support diagnosis in settings where resources were limited. Whether it was guiding local physicians in Guyana on how to use donated equipment or providing echocardiograms in rural settings, she has seen how essential imaging can be when other diagnostic options aren’t available.  She would love to use her years of ultrasound training where it is needed most, starting this year in Whitecourt with a PoCUS probe. 

These communities don’t just need doctors — they need advocates who understand the difficulties of their lives, and she wants to be that person. Someone who listens before diagnosing, who remembers the impact of calving season and harvest before homing in on symptoms. She wants to see neighbors, not just patients. Virginia’s background, her work, and her heart have all pointed her back to rural medicine — not as an obligation, but as truly worthwhile work. 

The future she envisions is one spent on gravel roads and inside tight-knit clinics, where medicine is as much about trust and relationships as it is about precision. That’s where she belongs.  And that’s where she is going.

University of Alberta

ryan scheltus

Ryan’s sole reason to apply to medical school was to fill in the gaps that he has personally experienced in the medical system in rural Alberta. He grew up in Clive, a village of 800 people and his wife grew up in Lousana, a hamlet of 40 people in central Alberta. They were both raised rurally and have a strong desire to return to rural and support their future community through the fields of medicine and education, as his wife is an elementary school teacher.

One of the draws for him to continue to pursue rural medicine is the challenges of limited resources. When in a clinic or in the hospital, things like CT, MRI, and other diagnostic techniques may not be as readily available, meaning the medical team is dependent on their own knowledge and physical exam skills to diagnose and treat patients. There is also the added variability of day-to-day work required by rural doctors. One day you may be in the emergency room treating acutely dangerous situations, and the next day you are in the family medicine clinic doing long-term follow-up with patients. This variability is another draw for him to rural medicine, where he can get to experience acuity and the long-term care of patients. He loves following up with the same patients, celebrating their wins and consoling them throughout their health journeys. Prior to medical school, he was a teacher. 

Ryan and his wife share the same goal of relocating rurally to set up their roots, begin their careers, and raise their children and family. He has utilized opportunities in medical school to explore parts of the province that he has not previously visited in order to get more insights into where they may set up their family. His long-term goal is to match into rural family medicine and complete a plus one year in the enhanced surgical skills program. He hopes to gain enough extra years of residency to be able to perform planned and unplanned c-sections, appendectomies, and cholecystectomies, to reduce travel time needed for treatment and to decrease the mortality associated with increased time between symptoms and surgical cure. Where he was raised, the nearest hospital had one surgeon that retired, meaning people needed to travel to an already overwhelmed hospital in Red Deer for surgical management. Not only are there dangers associated with increased travel time with acute conditions, but often people avoid seeing the doctors and delaying treatment due to travel. While he may not be able to single handedly stop this problem, it is his lifelong aim to alleviate some of the strain of the medical system for rural patients.

University of Alberta

Jessica (Jesse) Lineham

Jesse is a third-year medical student who recently returned to her hometown of Hinton, Alberta to complete Integrated Community Clerkship. As a first-generation university and medical student, she feels fortunate to carry forward the incredible hard work, resilience, and perseverance of a blue-collar lifestyle while pursuing a career in family medicine.
 
Jesse’s journey to medical school is rooted in her community and family values established through impactful volunteer work. She feels the most integrated into her community of Hinton when she coaches boxing with her mother and father at the Hinton Boxing Club, a not-for-profit gym that trains competitive and recreational athletes.
 
Her rural work experience has also shaped her passion for medicine and community service. For over six (6) years, Jesse has worked with Options, a harm reduction agency that provides safer sex supplies, safer drug use supplies, and education to the West Yellowhead region. Her work has been both front-line, providing supplies and resources to marginalized individuals and organizations through raising funds and awareness within the community. Most recently, Jesse secured a grant to expand Options’ support through LGBTQ2S+ programs locally.
 
In her time away from school, Jesse enjoys running as a way to decompress. In 2021, she took on the Canadian Death Race (CDR), a 118 km ultramarathon, as part of a relay team. Each time she returns to Grande Cache to run – this year to attempt the complete 118 km distance – she remarks that she feels a special tie to the town and its residents. Communities such as Hinton and Grande Cache experiencing shortages of physicians have factored into Jesse’s decision to pursue rural work and encourages her to potentially explore more remote communities through locum work, specifically Northern communities. 

University of Calgary

Carolyn Stephens

Carolyn grew up in rural Jamaica; in a town called Falmouth on the northern coastline. It was the typical small-town culture where people knew each other’s name and family, and the town corner shop also doubled as a social joint. Carolyn moved to Kingston, the capital city for 4 years to complete her pharmacy degree and then moved back home to live and work. It was a seamless transition because she knew so many of the residents and they knew her and were happy to have a familiar face when they had drug and health-related questions.

When Carolyn moved to Canada, she found herself in Bonnyville and lived there until she moved to Calgary for medical school. Carolyn has lived most of her life in a small town; the people, the sense of community and being closer to nature were always things she loved about rural towns. Carolyn believes people should have access to care as close to home as possible and she wants to be a part of the medical team that provides that care. It is her goal to ultimately practice rural medicine, because having lived rurally, she understands many of the challenges faced in the context of rural health.

Rural regions usually have fewer physicians and more limited access to specialists and certain physical and facility resources; this can delay access to care and potentially alter an individual’s illness trajectory. Because many healthcare services are concentrated in larger centres, there is the additional challenge faced by rural residents for time away from work or daily activity, and travel over long distances to access certain health services. With all these barriers, the ideal of equity in healthcare access is not being met. Equity in access to healthcare services requires change on a variety of levels including policy and funding, but by pursuing a career in rural medicine Carolyn can be a part of the solution and initiative to contribute positively to rural health.

University of Alberta

Hailea Purcell

Hailea is a third-year medical student at the University of Alberta and recently moved with her family to Ponoka where she will be completing her Integrated Community Clerkship for the next nine months. She is Denesuline and a member of Smith's Landing First Nation in Treaty 8 territory. She was born and raised in Edmonton. Her mother is from a small northern community of Fort Smith, Northwest Territories.

She has five years of experience working as a registered nurse in various settings including the emergency departments at University of Alberta and Royal Alexandra Hospitals, Awasisak Indigenous Health Program at the Stollery Children’s Hospital, and in her family’s home community at the Fort Smith Health Centre. As a case manager at the Stollery Children’s Hospital she provided holistic care and supported the discharge process for patients and their families transitioning from hospital to rural Indigenous communities. She soon realized how unpredictable rural health care services can be, specifically on First Nations and Metis Settlements. It was in this role, where she was inspired by many Indigenous physicians working both in urban and rural communities, that led her to pursue a career in medicine.

Over this next year she will be living and learning alongside rural physicians and allied health care professionals. This learning experience is one step toward her dream of working as a physician in rural and remote First Nations communities.

University of Calgary

Tina Nash

Tina is a member of the Tahltan First Nation, mother to 11 children and grandmother to 7 grandchildren. She is a Provisionally Registered Psychologist and prior to her clerkship year in medical school, Tina worked with the Indigenous Mental Health Program with Alberta Health Services for 21 years. She holds BSc Psychology, MSc Health Sciences, Health Services Research and MC, Clinical Counselling Psychology degrees and now at 53 years of age, Tina is in her final year of a Doctor of Medicine degree at the University of Calgary and completing longitudinal clerkship in Yellowknife, NT. Tina sits on numerous committees and working groups that support rural and remote medicine and holds leadership positions that address anti-Indigenous racism and inform care and physician learning though her work with AHS, AMA, IPAC, IMSAC, HSAA and the University of Calgary.

Tina has always wanted to become a rural Physician. As a child she would think of practicing medicine in Africa and trading chickens and goats for care, but as she got older, Tina came to recognize the disparity of health that Indigenous people in Canada face and is now drawn to practicing medicine in rural/remote areas and with Indigenous people. Before landing on medicine, life took her in different directions that have prepared her for understanding what true wholistic health care entails. Tina feels blessed to learn the importance and ways to promote spiritual and emotionally healing from Indigenous Elders; she has learned though psychology what impacts on mental health and psychological healing; and is now learning in medicine, how physical healing manifests itself. It is full circle learning and understanding of how wholistic healing comes from addressing physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of being with every encounter.

There are two teachings that have guided Tina’s medical school learning and daily practice of medicine. Elder Sykes Powderface of the Stoney Nakoka Nation would say, “The spirit speaks, the heart believes, the mind thinks and the body does. It does not happen in that order for it is always interconnected but it ALWAYS begins with how you speak to your spirit.” Each day, Tina gets up and greets the day with gratitude – gratitude for the opportunity to learn, gratitude for community, the land, the people, gratitude for treasured relationships along the journey and gratitude that she gets to love people every day in the most honouring of ways. The second teaching comes from Dr. Steinhauer, as he said, “The best medicine you can give patients is to love them” and Dr. James Makokis built on that sentiment by saying, “We need more love in medicine.” When Tina sees patients and families interact with medical and allied health care staff and reflect on how best to provide care for those in need, these are the teachings that guide her path. She looks forward to practicing family medicine in rural/remote Indigenous communities.

University of Alberta

Darcy Belanger

Darcy Belanger is currently a third-year medical student and is completing this stage of his training through the Integrated Community Clerkship program at the University of Alberta. Having been born in Lac La Biche, and raised in Sturgeon County, he is no stranger to rural life and the many opportunities and challenges inherent to it. 

Prior to medical school, Darcy completed a bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology from the University of Alberta. While on campus, he was involved in student governance and community engagement through various positions held on the faculty’s student council. As a kinesiologist, Darcy believes exercise holds an important role in medicine and well-being. Darcy was able to practice as a Neuro-exercise Specialist at ReYu Paralysis Recovery Centre before beginning formal medicine education.

During summer months he has worked as a wildland firefighter with the Government of Alberta in the communities of Lac La Biche, Swan Hills, and Rocky Mountain House. This work experience allowed him to witness the strength, resilience, and generosity of many of Alberta’s most remote communities.

Recently, Darcy moved to the town of Peace River where he will be living and learning for the next nine months.

University of Calgary

Jezuina McDonald

Jezuina McDonald is a third-year medical student at the University of Calgary and is currently completing her training in the Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship Program in Crowsnest Pass.

Jesse grew up in a rural and remote community, Nakusp BC. This is the community that inspired her to pursue a career in rural medicine. Growing up in Nakusp, she benefited from the intersection of rurality, community, and health. She became interested in and passionate about health equity for rural and remote communities. Jesse values being an active member of the community and feels like the best version of herself in a rural context.

During medical school, Jesse has been an involved in advocacy for rural medicine in the Rural Medicine Interest Group at the University of Calgary and the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada Student Committee as the University of Calgary Liaison. 

Jesse holds a Bachelor of Health Science Degree in Biomedical Studies from UNBC and an advanced diploma in Rural Pre-Medicine from Selkirk College, which she pursued after her snowboard career ended due to injury. Her education focused on rural and Indigenous health and healing and more specifically, how teachings from the Indigenous paradigm can be incorporated into the biomedical model for a more inclusive approach to health care. She has worked at the Skookum Jim Friendship Center in Whitehorse and the Ki-Low-Na Friendship Society in Kelowna, specializing in Aboriginal supported child development and youth emergency shelter services. She has experience in youth facilitation around mental health and healing with northern Indigenous youth and has hosted circles at the Jackson Lake Healing Camp in the Yukon Territory. She has spent time in rural South Africa as a Project Assistant with the Sinovuyo Teens Project, which aims to develop an evidence-based parenting and teen program for youth and their families who are affected by HIV/AIDS. Prior to medical school, Jesse worked for the Interior Health Authority as the Coordinator of the Aboriginal Health Program.

Jesse feels honored to be recognized for her commitment to rural medicine and is excited about what the future will hold.

University of Alberta

Kirill Lissovskiy

Kirill Lissovskiy is currently a third-year medical student at the U of A. He was born in Kazakhstan and lived there until he immigrated to Canada with his parents, where the family settled in Drayton Valley.

During high school, Kirill was very involved with his community. From teaching courses on leadership and effective speaking to representing Canada internationally as part of an exchange program through the Royal Canadian Air Cadets. He also volunteered at the local continuous care facility as a Patient Care Assistant, which ignited his interest in health care.

Prior to medical school, he attended the University of Alberta, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences and a Master’s degree in Public Health. This led him to work with government and not-for-profit organizations on several community-centered initiatives, including the Fort McMurray wildfire recovery project.

Kirill’s interest in rural medicine can be traced back to his experiences living in rural communities in Alberta and elsewhere in the world. In addition to his time in Drayton Valley, he spent a number of summers of his childhood in rural Siberia with his grandparents.

During his first two years of medical school, he participated in shadowing opportunities in Sundre and Camrose, and completed a clinical elective in Grande Prairie. Kirill will spend the next year in Edson as part of the Integrated Community Clerkship program, where he will be working at the local clinic and hospital. Upon completing medical school, he hopes to work in Northern Alberta with the goal of incorporating his public health and health promotion experience into his medical practice.

Kirill is excited about practicing rural family medicine, where he can build long-lasting patient-physician relationships.

University of Calgary

Celia Walker

Celia Walker is currently in her third year of medical school at the University of Calgary, completing her training between her hometown of Calgary and her longitudinal integrated clerkship rural site, Rocky Mountain House. For Celia, rural family medicine fuses so many aspects of who she is into one career.

Celia spent most of her childhood summers in her mother’s hometown; a small community of roughly 500 people in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. This childhood connection to the East Coast led her to complete a BSc in biology and bioethics at Dalhousie University.

Celia has worked, studied and explored around the globe during her undergraduate degree and masters. Her interest in the intersection between ethics, medicine, and local and global health inequities led her to conduct her MSc in Global Health at McMaster University.

Following the completion of her MSc, Celia moved to Prince George, where she worked on a variety of research projects. Celia came to realize that Canada, especially rural, northern, and remote communities are not immune to the greatest global health challenges of the 21st century. It was then she decided to apply to med school so that she could serve the communities she was researching.

Celia shadowed physicians in many rural communities around Alberta, but it was after spending time in Rocky Mountain House that her desire to pursue a career in rural medicine was solidified. She values the intimate connection with rural communities, where she is exposed to the diversity of practice such as emergency medicine, obstetrics and Indigenous health.

Celia is an active environmentalist. She has been a member of Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment for five years, pioneered a film project on the health impacts of climate change in Canada and a project to integrate Planetary Health education into U of C curricula. Her work on climate and planetary health has further stoked her interest in – and connection to – rural medicine.

University of Alberta

Rodger Craig

There are a number of significant factors driving his pursuit of rural practice including: family interests, his own professional and intellectual interests and their alignment with rural practice, and finally, the opportunity to really be a part of a community and to serve and make meaningful contributions within that community. 

Rodger and his wife both grew up within families that farmed and have lived in a number of small towns across both southern and northern Alberta, first as a junior hockey player and later as a rig-hand working in the oil and gas industry for Nabors Drilling.

Rodger is also drawn to the diversity of medicine that rural physicians practice, and the ability to work and provide care in a number of settings ranging from family clinic, to the emergency room, and even the operating room.

He is excited by the opportunities to pursue additional training in certain specialties, such as anesthesia or obstetrics, among others, to augment his skills and learning, and provide services that help meet the specific needs of a community.

Rodger and his family recently moved to Sylvan Lake to complete his third-year core clinical rotations as part of the U of A’s rural Integrated Community Clerkship program. 

University of Calgary

Chantal Serwatkewich

Chantal is in her third-year of medical school at the University of Calgary. Growing up she always wanted to be a physician and after high school she took nursing as her undergraduate degree and in 2009 completed her Bachelor of Nursing at Mount Royal College.

Chantal was born and raised in Fernie, BC and worked as a rural RN for nine years before applying and being accepted to the medical program at the University of Calgary in 2018. She enjoys living and working in a rural community and the challenges it brings on a day-to-day basis. As an RN she practiced in the ER, medical and surgical, labor and delivery, and palliative care nursing.

As a physician, she hopes to continue this and work in small communities in southern Alberta and BC. Chantal would also like to do some work in remote communities in northern Canada. She loves living and working in the same community and getting to know her patients on a more personal level. Being a rural family physician brings a diverse array of opportunities and looks forward to experiencing all that rural medicine has to offer.

She has completed electives in rural family medicine in both Alberta and BC and is currently participating in the UCLIC program in Crowsnest Pass.

Being able to live and work in such a great community close to where I grew up is a wonderful opportunity and feels very honored to receive this bursary as it will significantly help her continue with her studies.

She is very grateful to the Alberta Medical Association for the Tarrant Scholarship and for this generous opportunity for future rural physicians.