Dear Perth residents, I am sorry.
My name is Emma Cronk, and I was raised on my parents’ 2,000-acre ranch in Parham, Ont., north of Kingston. I am currently a family medicine resident physician in Atlanta, Georgia at Emory University.
I tried for two application cycles for medical school in Canada, and applied broadly: from Ontario medical schools, to the east coast at Memorial University, to the west coast at University of British Columbia. After two years of rejection letters, I decided to apply internationally at Ross University School of Medicine in the Caribbean. I had come to realize that a lot of Canadian students were following this same path.
I was a NCAA D1 collegiate athlete as an undergraduate, where I played on a full basketball scholarship while simultaneously completing my Bachelor of Science in biology. I also was part of the Centre for Performance training camps, where the top athletes in Canada would come together to train on weekends throughout the year in Toronto. Furthermore, I played for Team Ontario and competed at the Canada Summer Games in Regina, the second-largest sporting event in the world besides the Olympics. Our team even brought home a gold medal, and we were recognized by Parliament for our accomplishments.
I wanted to graduate and work in rural primary care, where doctors are needed the most.
Even after my travels with basketball, my end goal was to be a rural primary-care physician near my hometown; I wanted to give back to my community. I understand the hardships that come from living an hour away from the nearest city and the importance of establishing care with a rural physician who has not only provided care to you, but to your entire family. I understand the struggle with transportation to get to appointments, to potentially reschedule, to have options for home visits, and let me tell you: I so desperately wanted to be that doctor for you.
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See Also:
(1) Half of young Americans say college is too expensive and no longer necessary
