Like father, like son. MD grad Cian Hackett and his father.
When Cian Hackett was growing up in Tofield, Alberta, being a doctor wasn't very appealing to him.
"My dad was the rural family physician in Tofield. To me, medicine was my dad missing my soccer games. It was being dropped off at the hospital, and my dad telling me it would only be a few more minutes-but the minutes turned into hours," he explains, laughing. "I spent a lot of hours sitting in the hallways flipping through magazines."
Hackett went on to complete an undergraduate degree at the University of Alberta in biological sciences with a minor in business. In spite of his memories from childhood, when it came to advancing his education, Hackett felt a strong tug toward the path of medicine. He says his past exposure to the day-to-day struggles behind practising medicine provided him valuable insights for his future.
"Ultimately I decided to pursue my doctor of medicine because I feel like I'll be making a difference in someone's life every single day," Hackett says. "I get to go home at the end of the day and know I've done a good job. Being a doctor offers that on a daily basis. And to be honest, I've gained a new view of my dad's profession while I've completed this degree. I understand the stresses, trying to spend time with his family while juggling his professional responsibilities. That kind of effort isn't something you really appreciate until you're older."
As soon as Hackett decided to pursue medicine, he was fiercely determined to make his mark at the U of A. Hackett contributed as the Alberta Medical Association student representative for his graduation class as well as for the Professional Association of Resident Physicians of Alberta.For any medical student undertaking a residency, having this many extracurricular commitments would be a difficult load to carry, but Hackett says he always felt it was worth it.
"There are times when you've been on call and awake for 24 hours, you're just exhausted and you ask yourself, 'Can I really do this?' But then you manage to take care of yourself, eat, sleep, do whatever you need to do to feel human again, and you find you can't wait to get back to your next shift."
Hackett knows that being at the U of A has made a huge difference for his career.
"There's one experience that will stick in my mind forever," Hackett recalls. "It was a pediatric cardiac arrest. We knew the patient was arriving and everyone was prepared-and part of that was the staff asking us, the students, if we wanted to be involved or not. That's the thing about the U of A-you're exposed to amazing learning opportunities but no one is going to push you past your level of comfort until you're ready."
"And at the end of that experience, the staff really made an effort to come and speak to all of the students involved individually. They made sure we knew we could go home for the day if we'd like to-everyone decompresses in their own way. So even though I pushed my limits, I had the support of the whole hospital behind me, and that makes a huge difference."
Hackett is graduating June 10 with his doctor of medicine degree and will be moving on to the University of Alberta's Family Medicine Residency Program at the Red Deer learning site. Any hesitation he had about his career path has now evaporated; he is certain that his choice to study medicine at the U of A was the right fit and looks ahead confidently to making his mark in Red Deer.
And to anyone else feeling the tug toward pursuing medicine at the U of A, he has this advice: "Go for it. It's a big enough school to have an academic reputation with tons of great clinical research, but it's small enough that you can develop really strong and lasting relationships with your class."
One important person in Hackett's life has already heeded his recommendation. "I managed to convince my sister to come here as well. She was considering all sorts of different schools, and she did her undergrad in Montreal at McGill, but eventually she started studying here as well."