Pierre-Olivier Dufresne

Committed to rallying the community towards attaining success

One man’s well-being is another man’s joy. For Pierre-Olivier Dufresne, a medical student at Université Laval, this motto is at the very heart of his commitment. With what essentially began as a somewhat ordinary idea aimed at improving the food courts in his university pavilion, he came to realize that thanks to a simple yet concrete gesture, he could rally people together, use his leadership skills and, more importantly, bring about change and improve everyone’s quality of life.

When he entered the faculty of medicine and learned of the existence of the Fonds d’investissement Étudiant multidisciplinaire in his faculty, Pierre-Olivier decided to get involved in the student committee so as to assert the rights, and above all, the needs of kinesiology students. Convinced that academic success hinges on the quality of the educational material available, as a member of the committee he argued in favour of the improvement of his faculty’s computing equipment and library so that less affluent students would have access to high quality material.

“He got steadfastly involved in defending the particularities of his field of study at a meeting where all medical programs were represented. (…) His determination to get certain requests for financing accepted despite his program’s very limited budget allowances paid off,” recounts executive director of the faculty of medicine Carole Nadeau.

Spurred on by his victory and aware of his ability to defend certain issues, he agreed to take on the position of president of the Fonds and reoriented his career towards medicine while continuing to pursue his Bachelor’s degree in kinesiology.

Though this decision entailed a number of sacrifices, he continued to get involved. For example, his faculty’s student coffee shop was experiencing difficulties in regard to the installations and management. Major restructuring was essential so he therefore rallied together a team to help him get the administration of the coffee shop back on track and ensure democratic management practices that would be beneficial to all.

And then, because the well-being of some is a joy for others, and because he still had some free time between classes and his academic grades were more than satisfactory and, above all, because physical fitness and teaching are two of his main passions, he became a volunteer with Motivaction-jeunesse, accompanying youngsters from underprivileged backgrounds on downhill skiing outings.

Pierre-Olivier also organizes ultimate Frisbee activities for adults who lack physical activity in his neighbourhood. And he takes advantage of this opportunity to analyse the athletes’ movements when they fall and is going to use this information for an upcoming project, a cooperative of medical professionals specializing in falls among the elderly, a current and increasingly widespread problem.

“Over the past five years, Université Laval has given itself the mission of giving the teaching of the health sciences a new image by focusing on a new inter-professional approach in the field. Pierre-Olivier’s leadership and commitment are perfectly in line with this approach,” points out Nathalie Houle, coordinator of the Réseau de collaboration sur les pratiques interprofessionnelles.

“I am a citizen who wants to see everyone benefit from my knowledge and skills and my head is brimming with ideas for attaining this goal,” Pierre-Olivier asserts.

Pierre-Olivier Dufresne