The Marlon Michel Class of 1999 Endowment in Medicine will be awarded for the first time this fall.
Marlon Michel, '99 MD, has always been, as he says, "a man who gets (things) done." Whether that means completing medical school and residency, or learning to fly and buying his own plane to avoid logging thousands of kilometres of work-related driving per month, Michel sees a goal and won't give up till he's conquered it. So when he realized there were ways he could help uplift current students at his alma mater, he knew he had to act.
Michel has pledged $75,000 US over five years for a first-of-its-kind faculty hybrid award-based on both academic standing and indicated financial need-for MD students at the University of Alberta. Michel, who grew up in the tiny southern Alberta town of Glenwood-population about 300-wants the awards to go to students who, like him, hail from rural communities. "I also don't want it to necessarily go to the smartest person," he says, "but someone who is trying hard and getting involved in the community."
Michel himself has never been the smartest person, he says, but he certainly has always distinguished himself by getting involved from an early age. He was born with a boundless entrepreneurial streak, and a mother who knew one thing for certain: her son would one day be a doctor. But first, he had to get through high school and the traditional two years of missionary work encouraged for all young Mormon men. He balanced two full-time jobs for a year to finance that mission, went off to Brazil, and returned to embark on an undergraduate degree in zoology at Brigham Young University in Utah.
After briefly considering a potential future in dentistry, then optometry-both strongly encouraged by Mom but soon soundly rejected by Michel himself-he landed on anesthesiology as his probable career and began his path to medical school.
"I like to be involved; when I can see opportunities I want to go with them," says Michel. As president of the Canadian Club at Brigham Young, he initiated several wildly successful fundraisers, including the popular $5-per-person, all-you-can-eat Canadian Thanksgiving dinner. When he returned to his home province to attend medical school at the U of A, he brought that creative fundraising spirit with him.
As vice-president of his MD class during second year, Michel sold advertising for the orientation guide given to incoming students and made enough money to fund all of his class's organized social events for the year. He also campaigned successfully to get approval for the MD Students Association to hold casinos, which culminated with $40,000 raised for a spectacular series of graduation events and enough left over for grants to offset the financial hardships of medical school. "Every student got $150," he remembers happily.
While fundraising came naturally to Michel, like many medical students, at home he and his young family were struggling financially. By his first year at the U of A he and his wife-they had met and married during his zoology degree-had a new baby, and, as he recalls, "my wife and I would often split a bagel for breakfast, then drink lots of water to try to feel full throughout the day." He began applying for scholarships, including a few long shots, like the Dr. Michael & Catherine Bullock Award, which was awarded every four years. When a friend told him he had won-in large part due to his tireless extracurricular involvement-he could hardly believe his good fortune. "My wife and I talked about it all weekend-'I can't believe we might have $2,000 every year!'" he recalls. And when it turned out he'd misunderstood and it was $8,000 per year, not spread over four years, he was astonished.
After the Bullocks took a chance on him, they grew close. "I became really good friends with them, wrote to them every month, even visited them in California," Michel remembers. "They came to my graduation."
Today, Michel is a practising anesthesiologist and owner of M2 Anesthesia, an office about 30 kilometres southeast of Seattle, Wash. that employs more than 20 full-time anesthesiologists who serve 120 pediatric dental and surgery centres throughout the Pacific Northwest. "I'm a businessman that happens to be a doctor," he says with a chuckle, a passion he formalized by obtaining his MBA at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville before launching his business.
To Michel, the Marlon Michel Class of 1999 Endowment in Medicine-which will be awarded for the first time this fall-is the perfect extension of his successes both as a doctor and as a business person. "I didn't do this for recognition," he says. "Someone helped me out once, and I'm now in a position to be able to surprise someone who's struggling."
What he'd really like is for other graduates to be inspired to give back too. "If we could get more people donating, that would be awesome," he says.