Medicine is the future for top science grad

Jagdis Jubilee Medal in Science

Amanda Jagdis is on a mission. After watching her mother, a school friend and countless children deal with the ravages of cancer, she’s determined to enter medicine and make a difference.

The 21-year-old Victoria native is well on her way. This month she graduates from UVic with a BSc in biology and the Jubilee medal in science as the faculty’s top student. Her grade point average is an astounding 9.0—a perfect score.

Well, almost perfect. Hidden in the sea of A-pluses in her transcript is a lone A-minus. "That was in first year when my mom had cancer and I missed a few classes to drive her to the clinic for treatment," she says. "What can I say?"

Jagdis heads to medical school in the fall, probably at UBC. Medicine is a natural choice. Her father is a physician in pediatrics and infectious diseases and her mother—now cancer-free—worked as a consultant for babies with developmental problems.

"They helped turn me on to medicine and all kinds of science," says Jagdis, who received a number of financial awards during her university studies, including the UVic Excellence Award, the Sheila Calvert Memorial Scholarship and the Seaspan International Scholarship.

Jagdis isn’t sure yet whether she wants to be a medical researcher—investigating the genetics of cancer—or a practising physician. For now, she just wants to study medicine and spend time with patients— something she’s been doing for the past six years as a volunteer at Victoria General Hospital.

"I love keeping patients company. It brings some extra cheer into their day and has been such a positive, eye-opening experience for me," she says.

Also on Jagdis’s résumé are two four-month work terms at National Research Council labs in Halifax and Montreal, summers as a counsellor at Camp Goodtimes for kids with cancer, a peer counsellor at UVic, Victoria Hospice volunteer, and one year on the UVic senate. She also does ballet and yoga.

Looking back on her years at UVic, Jagdis remembers one pivotal moment. "It was first year and I could see all these people around me studying different things and I felt like my doors were completely opening. I was so excited to be here."