I was born in Montreal in 1962 to European immigrant parents—my father was from France and my mother from Denmark. I was raised in a French-speaking household and attended French-language schools throughout my early education, only beginning my studies in English when I entered medical school.

My father, a general surgeon and faculty member at McGill University, moved our family to Sherbrooke, Quebec, in 1967 to help establish the medical school at what is now the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke. Following in his footsteps, I began medical school in Sherbrooke in 1982.

During my first year, my father accepted a position in Halifax as Head of the Department of Surgery at Dalhousie University. In 1983, I transferred to Dalhousie to begin my second year of medical school. The move was also financially advantageous, making the transition to Halifax a practical decision for me.

I graduated from Dalhousie Medical School in 1986 and subsequently completed a one-year rotating internship. I then moved to Bathurst, New Brunswick, where I worked as an Emergency Room Physician for three years.

During medical school, I had been a classmate of Dr. Charles Fisher, who was already pursuing an orthopaedic residency at the University of British Columbia. In 1990, inspired by his path and my growing interest in orthopaedic surgery, I decided to join him at UBC and pursue my own training in the field.