Dr. Dave Dhat is a busy man on many fronts.

As a trauma and emergency physician at Abbotsford Regional Hospital, he puts in long shifts caring for people at their time of greatest need, managing heavy patient demand and whatever medical emergencies bring them to his door.

As the regional medical director for trauma for Fraser Health, he strategizes with other health care leaders about how best to address emergency health care in a system that is under great stress.

And as the president of the Dhata Foundation, he works with his four siblings and parents to organize and run eye-treatment camps in the Punjab region of India, where they have arranged cataract surgeries and restored eyesight for thousands of patients since the foundation launched in 2003.

Today, Dave is happy to be settled in the Fraser Valley providing much-needed health care, but his journey to a medical career was a circuitous one.

When he was a student at what was then UCFV in the late 1990s and early 2000s, his goal was to be an engineer. After earning his Associate of Science degree, he went on to complete an engineering degree at the University of Victoria and then moved to the Silicon Valley to work as an electrical engineer.  He then returned to BC to run a trucking company.

But it was his experiences in India helping at the eye-care camps that have restored vision for so many grateful patients that his desire to pursue a career as a physician was ignited. He enrolled in medical school at McMaster University, graduating in 2010.

“Helping people in India had a tremendous impact on me.”

“It was shocking to me to witness first-hand how many people were affected by easily preventable and curable diseases. Restoring sight is one of the greatest gifts. Seeing an old woman crying because she hadn’t seen in 10 years, and now can finally see her grandchildren, was a transformative experience.

“Helping people in India had a tremendous impact on me.”

Although medical school was not his immediate goal when he was a student at UFV, Dave says his studies prepared him well.

“The ability to explore multiple different scientific and non-scientific disciplines with instructors who were genuinely interested in their field and in helping students understand the subject was very beneficial,” he recalls.

“I found physics instructor George McGuire and Tim Cooper and chemistry instructor Peter Slade to be particularly inspiring. They had a true love for their respective disciplines, but who were also dedicated to preparing us to think about science and how to approach scientific problems. For sure it prepared me well for medical school and engineering school. I had an easy time in my further studies because I had the proper grounding at UFV. I don’t know if I appreciated it as much at the time as I do now, with some perspective.”

Dave and all four of his siblings (Manjinder, Rob, Neelam, and Mandeep) got their start at UFV in areas such as science, engineering, general studies, and criminal justice before going on to further professional studies and successful careers.

“The quality of education was second to none, and UFV provided a great bridge to wherever we wanted to go. Our family owes a tremendous amount to UFV.”

Dave says that today’s students should look carefully at fields they may be interested in before leaving university.

“The world moved at a slower speed when I was a student. It is important to explore and understand current and future trends in the areas you wish study/start a business or career in, because things are changing so quickly.”