Out of 600 medical school students who have worked under him in his career, Dr. Rob Hegele said Maud Ahmad is in the top 10. “Research is actually a special skill. Not every medical student demonstrates an aptitude for it, but he clearly has,” Hegele said of Ahmad, a fourth-year medical student. It’s high praise from the Distinguished University Professor of medicine and biochemistry at Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, and the Jacob J. Wolfe Distinguished Medical Research Chair. Ahmad has been the driving force behind two significant research projects with Hegele, including Five things to know about Apolipoprotein B and another investigating patients with genetically elevated triglycerides. He presented his research on triglyceride elevations at a national conference held in Montreal. But perhaps Ahmad’s most important undertaking is his work outside hospitals and classrooms. He’s eager to help students from driverse backgrounds achieve their goals. When Ahmad was applying to medical school, he said there were many challenges for underrepresented students like him. He wished he had a mentor to ask for advice.

“We didn’t have people who could walk us through the process and explain to us what it takes to get into medical school, how to be a stand-out applicant.” – Maud Ahmad, fourth-year medical student

“We felt that it would be a meaningful initiative for us to create some sort of a mentorship program where we can talk to students who are underrepresented,” Ahmad added.  

Mentorship program is born

Once he got in, Ahmad decided to help change the landscape of the application process. In his first year of medical school in 2021, Ahmad teamed up with classmate Jayneel Limbachia and friends to create ACCESS Inc., Admissions Counselling and Coaching for Equitable Students Success, a zero-cost mentorship program for equity-deserving students interested in medicine. Mentors in the program give guidance to prospective medical school students, including what to expect from the application process and how to make their applications stand out. They offer one-on-one interview preparation, help with essay editing and answer questions related to getting into medical school and what to expect after acceptance. ACCESS Inc. had their inaugural mentorship cycle in January 2022, when 79 mentors signed up to help 79 applicants. Since then, Ahmad said the program has grown each year, with many of the original mentees who were accepted into medical school now becoming mentors.  

Program helps med students reach their dreams

The program’s executive group sends feedback surveys to mentors and mentees after each cycle, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Ahmad reported 64 to 72 per cent of mentees have received an interview or a subsequent acceptance into medical school. Because of the data his team received, they decided to turn their work into a research project and program evaluation. The group presented an abstract at the Ontario Medical Student Education Research Conference in 2024, sharing their data, next steps and advice for those interested in creating similar programs. Then they worked with Dr. George Kim, associate dean of admissions at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry, to publish a mixed methods paper in the Canadian Medical Education Journal. “People were interested in hearing about our initiative and implementing this sort of program at their own schools. It was a great opportunity to share our data on the success of ACCESS Inc. so far,” he said. More than two years later, Ahmad still thinks back to the passion that sparked his journey. “I just wanted to make my support system proud and pursue something I’m interested in. I feel very lucky to have gotten accepted to medical school and dedicate myself to something that I’m genuinely very, very passionate about,” he said.