Global health researcher counsels new med students to seize opportunities when they arise

An expert in global public health told UM’s newest medical students that a career in medicine offers countless potential paths, and when opportunities come their way, take them.

Dr. Marissa Becker, professor of community health sciences and medical microbiology and infectious diseases at the College of Community and Global Health and Max Rady College of Medicine, seized one such opportunity as a UM medical student in the late 1990s. It was the chance to travel overseas to learn about the renowned Kenya-University of Manitoba research collaboration on sexually transmitted infections.

Dr. Marissa Becker gives the Alan Klass Memorial Address.

“This experience opened my eyes to the possibilities of global health,” Becker said in her Alan Klass Memorial Address at the Max Rady College of Medicine’s Inaugural Day Exercises and White Coat Ceremony held, for the first time, at the Centennial Concert Hall on Aug. 20.

Today, Becker’s research program focuses on understanding HIV, STI and other infectious disease risk and outcomes among marginalized populations, with a specific focus on adolescent girls, young women and female sex workers. Her research is conducted in Kenya, India, Pakistan and Ukraine.

Becker, also the director of technical collaborations at the Institute for Global Public Health in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, told the students she was in their place exactly 30 years ago. 

The Max Rady College of Medicine’s Inaugural Day Exercises and White Coat Ceremony was held for the first time at the Centennial Concert Hall.

“Over the next four years, you will witness and experience remarkable, sometimes challenging moments – your first delivery, your first surgery, the first time you share life-changing news with a patient, both joyous and difficult. These moments will stay with you forever,” she said. 

“Patients will entrust you with some of the most personal parts of their lives. That trust must be earned, and it must be carried with integrity.”

Welcome Class of 2029

The Max Rady College of Medicine Class of 2029 comprises 140 students, and members range in age from 20 to 43. The class includes 11 Indigenous students and 53 students with rural attributes, meaning that they have rural roots or rural work, volunteer or leadership experience. One French-speaking student is enrolled in the bilingual stream. 

The class’s ethnic and socio-economic diversity reflects the Max Rady College of Medicine’s inclusive admissions policy. 

The Inaugural Day Exercises included the ceremonial cloaking of the students in their first white coats and the recitation of the Physician’s Pledge.

Abigail Woytowich

Abigail Woytowich, 23, speaks French and will be studying medicine in the bilingual stream. She had an interest in medicine from a young age as she watched her father navigate chronic illness. She earned her bachelor of music from UM in 2024.

Taking part in the white coat ceremony didn’t feel real, she said.

“I’m so excited for everything I’m going to learn and everybody I’m going to meet and all the incredible and wonderful experiences the team here at the UM medical school is going to give us,” Woytowich said.

Jesse McGregor

Jesse McGregor, 25, is originally from Misipawistik Cree Nation and grew up mainly in Kinosao Sipi Cree Nation (Norway House Cree Nation). His role model is his mother, a nurse who has served First Nations communities. After earning his bachelor of health sciences from UM in 2022, he worked as an Indigenous student recruitment officer at the university.

McGregor said he wants to become a physician because he would like to give back to the communities that built him into who he is today.

“I’m from the North and I’m proud of my identity as an Indigenous person,” he said.

“I want to be able to be an Indigenous family physician and give back to the North and commit to that ongoing journey of reconciliation of the health-care system and making sure our people feel cared for in a way they feel understood and feel heard.”

Tara Clarke

Tara Clarke, 43, worked for a decade as a rural paramedic and nine years as an emergency department physician assistant. Clarke, a mother of five, has also worked with Rady Faculty’s Ongomiizwin – Health Services to pioneer a first-in-Canada program to integrate physician assistants into health-care teams in remote First Nations communities.

She said she almost teared up while reciting the Physician’s Pledge because the reality of the power and privilege she and her classmates have hit her.

“I come with a significant clinical background, and I’m excited to bring those perspectives and be able to do more for people,” Clarke said.

“I’ve had a unique trajectory to this point, and I’m definitely not traditional. I think that is a testament to the way our systems are changing and we’re ensuring that our Manitoba health care population looks like our province’s population.”

View an Instagram Reel recapping the Inaugural Day Exercises or watch the full event on YouTube.

Matthew Kruchak