Every founder has a story... This is mine.
I hope it inspires you imagination, drives your inner curiosity, and boosts your belief in yourself.
I realized at an early age that my journey as a girl was going to be different. I went to school for Halloween as a doctor because I always wanted to be a doctor. The teacher was going around the room asking everyone what they were and why. At my turn, “I said I am a doctor.” The teacher replied “Little girls cannot be doctors.”
As a quiet, shy and very introverted little person who never said a peep in school - I somehow found the courage to stand tall and say “I am going to be a doctor, I have my pills and prescription pad in this bag”.
I knew subconsciously in that moment that I was going to have challenges along the way. For the first time really standing up for myself and the belief in my capacity and resilience to see it through. Not words I understood as a little human, but something deep within me was ignited.
I wasn’t doing well in English class - I was horrible at it. Sometimes I blamed my Newfoundland upbringing for the Gaelic English and the words that made no sense to anyone but the people where I was from. Other times, I just thought I was intellectually challenged and maybe my dreams of going to university & becoming a doctor were not within my reach. I was still introverted and shy and barely said a word.
Pop public speaking exam in English class - I pick my topic (I’m terrified of public speaking), prep for a minute, give my 5-minute speech and sit down. The teacher at the end of the class says to meet me after school we need to have a chat.
I figured I was failing English and had a pretty fatalistic day as a young teenage girl. At the end of the day, I waited in the classroom for my fate. Instead, the conversation was I believe you have talent in public speaking and may have a gift that has never been cultivated - I would like to be your mentor and I will meet you every day after school. You will win public speaking competitions & I believe you could be one of the best. You have a choice - stay and do what you are doing or get out of your comfort zone, work hard and win.
I Worked Hard - I was determined to be one of the first female orthopedic surgeons in Nfld. However, as I started to understand what an orthopedic surgeon truly did - I realized that all those years of drive towards a goal were the wrong target.
Ok, so I achieved my goals. But, now what? Little did I know that my path as I had seen it as a young person was about to get flipped on its head.
[Insert big wall]
I was crushed and had very little time to make a change with residency applications around the corner. [Insert 2 amazing plastic surgeons] who changed the course of my life and helped me obtain one of the 9 positions for Plastic Surgery Residency in Canada.
I was slated to go into a peripheral nerve research laboratory at the University of Toronto. 3 weeks before my start date, my supervisor took a position out West and wanted me to move with him. If I moved, I would lose my funding and that meant no rent, no food and no way to support myself - there was not a chance I could make that work.
So now I was left with no job and no income - I had 3 weeks to find something. [Insert Dr. Joel Fish at the Ross Tilley Burn Centre] where I was working at the time. I might have shed a few tears in his office and that is when he showed me a box and asked me “ Can you build anything? Can you program a computer? Do you have any background in physics or math?" The answer to it all was 'no' but somehow I convinced him I could learn and I would work hard.
Those 5 years were some of the best of my life. I learned how to think outside the box, negotiate, be a leader, challenge myself and it gave me the tools I needed for the biggest career move I was about to make as the CEO of MIMOSA.
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MIMOSA Diagnostics and the creation of the MIMOSA Pro really represents the evolution of my career and a series of events that transformed and changed my perspective on how we solve one of healthcares biggest challenges - wound care and skin injuries. It was although the universe had aligned to say - you are ready to take this next step. You have the clinical background, the scientific background and the passion to make a difference.
And then there was a collision of events which led to further inspiration - again 'Hello Universe!'
MIMOSA was born really out of two people coming together with different areas of expertise who sat and talked about the clinical dilemma and set out to build a solution which we now know as MIMOSA [Check it out].
