A physician’s life is a hectic one, and it’s certainly no different for Mississauga family physician Dr. Colin Saldanha.
Since coming to Canada, Saldanha has brought about purposeful change – not only in the lives of his patients, but also through mentoring newcomers.
“Well you see, I came to Canada in 1981, and I came as a foreign medical graduate,” said Saldanha.
“There was no support system, I had to navigate the entire system on my own – quite a struggle … I’ve realized over the years that it’s very difficult to navigate the Canadian system unless you have good mentors.”
Over the years, Saldanha has invested a lot of his time helping new immigrants integrate successfully into the Mississauga community. Yet the passion for his profession continues strong.
Saldanha supports the Canadian Medical Association’s More Doctors Now program, which advocates mentoring for international medical graduates.
“Unfortunately, a lot of international medical graduates when they come back to Canada they can get disheartened and discouraged very easily … then enter into the non-medical field,” said international medical graduate Dr. Shaji Khan.
“If I could only be half the physician and half the person he is today, I’d consider myself very, very lucky person,” said Khan.