Isabelle Samson

Committed to Mutual Aid and Ethical Consumption

Isabelle Samson, a student in medicine and music at Université Laval, was very young when she came to realise what an important role the people around us can play in our lives. Diagnosed with cancer in infancy, she was surrounded by sick children who were sad and unsmiling and found it hard to understand how this could be possible. “A child is supposed to laugh and play, nothing else,” she thought to herself. The experience was to forever change her perception of life and above all dictate the first lines of the script for the role she intended to play!

For Isabelle, the people around her and the world she lives in are a constant source of inspiration for ideas and the projects she chooses to carry out. Her very first project, back in elementary school, involved organizing a collection of candy on Halloween that was then sent to underprivileged children.

Yet it was in high school that Isabelle discovered her true passion for music, seeing at the same time its endless possibilities for bringing happiness to others. It was then that she decided, with five fellow female students, to stage a musical comedy for charity as her personal final-year project. With over forty performers on stage, 1,500 spectators and dozens of sponsors, the troupe succeeded in raising $15,000 for Opération enfant soleil.

At this time, Isabelle had already become a source of inspiration for others. “The contagious energy she radiates inspires other people to surpass themselves. I can even assert that, because of her positive attitude and commitment, she has been a role model for many students at the college,” said her former teacher, Andrée Lord.

As the recipient of numerous awards both in the field of sports and in culture and literature, her arrival at Université Laval did not go unnoticed. “Isabelle Samson is driven by three major passions: academic success, the joy of performing music and the opportunity to bring a certain solace to people afflicted by illness or suffering from loneliness. These three passions characterized her entrance into the Faculty,” asserted the faculty of medicine’s admissions coordinator, Guy Labrecque.

And it was in this spirit that, along with two friends, she founded the MEDissimo choir in order to bring genuine comfort to elderly people who are only too often alone and feel forgotten. Isabelle is fully aware that spreading joy is a way of promoting health. The group recruited thirty students and now performs over thirty concerts a year in Québec hospitals and retirement homes.

At the same time, Isabelle coordinates the “Mieux consommer pour moins consumer” one-day event, which informs students about tangible alternatives they can put into practice to favour sustainable development. As well as helping to organize a benefit concert to finance international health internships, she is a member of a group of volunteer first-aid workers called ÉPIPEM and is on the board of governors of Université Laval’s radio station CHYZ-FM.

What does Isabelle plan to do upon completing her studies? She wants to move to a rural area and set up a unique community health clinic. On the program, culture, mutual aid and of course health services. It goes to show that for Isabelle, in life, nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed!

Isabelle Samson