I grew up in Toronto, Canada and after finishing high school, moved to the United Kingdom where I completed medical school at the University of St Andrews and the University of Manchester. After working for a year as a junior doctor in Scotland, I returned to Canada to complete pediatric residency at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario) and pediatric nephrology fellowship at the Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto, Ontario). I am currently an MSc candidate in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research at the University of Toronto Institute of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation and a Research Fellow at the Hospital for Sick Children. The focus of my MSc research is using novel causal inference methods, such as target trial emulation, to evaluate different treatments for pediatric glomerular diseases.

I chose a career in pediatrics because I love to work with children and their families. As a high school and university student, I worked as a children’s skating instructor and camp counsellor, where I discovered how rewarding this work could be. While at St Andrews, I became captivated by translational research and clinical trials for novel therapeutics. As a medical student in Manchester, I first became involved in research during a student elective. This was a retrospective cohort study of 177 children with urinary tract stones, supervised by Dr. Mohan Shenoy. I also had the opportunity to participate in the Student Audit and Research in Surgery collaborative, which conducted student-led, large-scale prospective observational studies on peri-operative outcomes, including acute kidney injury. These early research experiences as a medical student led me to pursue an academic career in pediatrics and consider nephrology as a potential specialty.

As a pediatric resident at McMaster University, I was fortunate to have outstanding academic mentorship from Dr. Rahul Chanchlani and Dr. Michelle Batthish. As a result, I became involved in several research projects using Canadian population-based health administrative databases to study Kawasaki disease and acute kidney injury. As a pediatric nephrology fellow at the Hospital for Sick Children, Dr. Rulan Parekh, Dr. Michael Zappitelli, and Dr. Damien Noone continued to inspire and motivate me. These mentors have pushed me to explore new research areas and methodologies, challenged me to improve as an investigator, build strong collaborative networks, and maintain focus on my long-term career and research goals. I have been fortunate to work with many other outstanding clinical and academic mentors throughout my training, who have also coached, sponsored, and advocated for me consistently.

My advice to others: (1) Learn from and be inspired by your patients. The idea for our research in Kawasaki disease long-term outcomes came from a question asked to me by a parent of a Kawasaki disease patient when I was a first-year pediatric resident (one that I could not answer at the time...). (2) Seek out mentors that will both support and challenge you. A career in academic pediatrics can be difficult. Take help and advice whenever you can and always aim to achieve better. (3) Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Be creative, adaptive, and willing to explore new research directions, methods, and collaborations. Take advantage of opportunities to work with people in different research fields and career stages. We have lots to learn from one another.