This is the 13th annual cycle for Dr. Emily Ellingsen Memorial Bursaries. She passed away on February 19, 2010 at the age of 31. Applications for two $2,000 Bursaries will be accepted until midnight on August 15, 2022.

Her husband, Aaron Ellingsen, explained, “I think it was actually her dad, John Woolley’s idea, but the two of us felt the bursary just represented her attitude and her enthusiasm for life and for just grabbing the world and doing things.  It seemed like a good way and very much in the spirit of her education and approach to life.”

He added, “She was one of the most incurable optimists I’ve ever met, not in an unrealistic way, but just in a ‘living in the moment’ kind a way.”

The two met at a birthday party close to Hollyhock on Cortes Island. Emily Woolley was about 18, and had just graduated from GP Vanier Secondary School in Courtenay. Aaron describes her as a ‘super fast moving kid’ and himself as ‘a not super fast moving young adult’ who was doing a fair bit of oyster work on Cortes.

“We hit it off really fast,” he said.

After about a month she moved out of her father’s house in Courtenay and into a little camper by Smelt Bay. Woolley found employment at the Taka Mika restaurant and also at Hollyhock.   

“She was just like going great guns blazing, and super excited to hit the world as an adult. We got together over the next couple of months and she spent a year working and saving money here on Cortes to go back to school,” .  

Woolley started an undergraduate science degree program at the University of Victoria. 

After eight months, and many visits, Ellingsen followed Woolley to Victoria.   They were engaged not long after that and married on Cortes Island during 1999.

Early in her second year, Emily started noticing she couldn’t see as well as other people. (She had been somewhat ‘clumbsy’ in her teenage years and more likely to trip than other people when walking on a trail at night.) Emily was able to work in the university bar, but when she also started in the nightclub she could not see well enough to serve drinks. She had to ask them to put the lights on. It turned out that she was legally blind!

“She was diagnosed with a condition called retinitis pigmentosa. The black and white vision collecting cells in the back of her eyes were deteriorating.  I think she had something like 8% consistent vision or something. The ophthalmologist we were dealing with at the time, likened  her field of consistent vision to basically looking through the center of a straw all the time,” explained Aaron.

Emily turned this disability into an advantage by applying for the special funding available to visually impaired students.

“She got through her undergraduate degree with no debt, which was pretty great!” said Aaron.  

She also found out about a rowing program specifically for visually impaired people. 

“She was able to get into the program and then she loved it.  We were getting up at five o’clock every morning and going to row, which we never did before, because she was handicapped! It was a running joke.”

After completing her B.Sc. in Biology at the University of Victoria in 2002, Emily received her M.D. at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario in 2005. 

While they were in Hamilton University, the Ellingsens joined a running and breakfast group. They contiued to run together until near the end of Emily’s life.

She was inspired to pursue a career in psychiatry by her stepfather, Dr Rick Strassman. 

Emily started a five-year psychiatry residency program, through UBC, after the Eliigsens returned to Victoria in 2005. She initially had to attend a class in Vancouver every week or two, but took her residency at the Eric Martin Pavilion, through the Royal Jubilee Hospital.

One of Emily’s closest friends was Chloe Gregg. The Ellingsens were godparents to both of Greg’s children. Emily wasn’t there when Gregg’s first child was born, and when she heard Chloe went into labour again said, “perfect.” She hopped onto a bus, crossed over to the Lower Mainland and entered the Vancouver maternity ward just in time for Gregg to have the baby. 

Aaron describes this as “the sort of strange luck, that can only be a product of action, that sort of exemplifies how things worked out for her a lot of the time.”

One of the exceptions came about 2008, when Emily was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Both the chemotherapist and the radiation specialist were confident that they had dealt with what they thought was a fairly localized cervical lesion or a couple of lesions. 

The Ellingsens took a break and went down to ’Burning Man’ in 2009. They also celebrated their 10th anniversary in the summer. 

“Shortly, or around that time, she noticed some swelling in her shoulder and in her armpits,” said Aaron.

The cancer had spread all over her body. Emily resumed chemotherapy and radiation treatments again, but “Emily Ellingsen passed away peacefully at sunrise on the morning of February 19, 2010.”

 “We never really spent any time talking about her dying, right up to the time when she was in the hospital. In the two weeks leading up to her death, she was welcoming, all kinds of our friends, her colleagues, our family. She held court in her room, there in Jubilee, for the last couple of weeks.  She just really didn’t spend any time thinking about missing out on anything,” said Aaron Ellingsen.

“At that point she was probably three months shy of completing a five year residency in psychiatry. So they gave her honorary completion of her residency, being the first psychiatry student to complete her residency entirely in Victoria.” 

He added, “I just feel really blessed to have to have shared 14 years of my life with her. I like to say that she dragged me back into a bigger world because  she convinced me that action wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. And I think that I really have made great strides in my life educationally, professionally and probably socially that I wouldn’t have made if she wasn’t there for me for a good long time.”

Aaron and his father-in law, John Woolley, agreed that setting up a bursary seemed to fit in with her spirit of education and approach to life. 

Would be applicants can click on this link to find guidelines for the bursary.

Top image credit: Emily rowing – courtesy Aaron Ellingsen

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