Staff Surgeon from Addis Ababa Ephrem Gebrechristos, M.D., F.R.C.S. (C), born in Makelle, capital of Ethiopia's Tigray Province, graduated in Medicine from Addis Ababa University at the time when a military regime was in power. Fleeing political repression in his native land, Dr. Gebrechristos found his way to Canada, 1986, and settled in Toronto where he continued his medical studies at the University of Toronto. Completing internship at St. Joseph’s Health Centre, 1988-89, Dr. Gebrechristos received a series of surgical fellowships over the next six years, primarily at the Toronto East General Hospital where he was chosen Best Resident Teacher of the Year, 1993. Married and the father of one daughter, Dr. Gebrechristos, since 1995, has been Staff Surgeon at Humber River Regional Hospital. [Photo, courtesy Dr. Ephrem Gebrechristos]

Establishing Toronto Medical Clinic The ninth of ten children, Dr. Yemisrach Hailemeskel, CCFP, born, 1958, Harrar, Ethiopia, upon completing with honours her high school education at the Bible Academy, Narazeth, was offered a chance to go to Czechoslovakia on a scholarship, 1976, providing this Amharic-speaking Ethiopian learned to speak and read Slovakian.  Upon completing this requirement, 1977, she enrolled at Safaric University, Faculty of Medicine, and continued her medical training at Comenius University, Bratislava, graduating, M.D., 1983.  That same year she entered Canada as a visitor and applied for refugee status because the difficult political situation in Ethiopia prevented her from returning to her native land.  While waiting for her landed immigrant status, Yemisrach worked for one year as a Research Fellow, Department of Pathology, Clinical Research Institute of Montreal.  After successfully fulfilling all her requirements to practice medicine in Canada, by 1986, she was back in Toronto, where today she has an established medical clinic serving her community as a family physician.  This scenic view was taken while visiting her sister in Switzerland as Dr. Yemisrach Hailemeskel was making her journey to Canada, 1983.  [Photo, courtesy Dr. Yemisrach Hailemeskel]