TORONTO — Shortly after Matthew Ginsburg passed away in 2012 at age 28, his parents headed to the University of Ottawa to accept an award in child and adolescent psychiatry on his behalf.
Ginsburg, who is originally from Grimsby, Ont., was doing his psychiatry residency at the Royal Ottawa Hospital when he died five months after he was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, or bile duct cancer.
He was set to receive the award while he was still alive, but unfortunately he passed away before the ceremony. When his parents arrived to accept it, they found out just how well respected their son was by his peers.
“Everyone was there, everyone who had anything to do with Matthew, even if they dealt with him for an hour,” his mother, Karen Ginsburg, said.
That’s when she and her husband decided they wanted to make sure he left his mark on the school.
“We thought this was a place we’d like to leave his legacy,” she said.
Working with the psychiatry department, the family has set up a scholarship in his honour. They hope to raise enough money to set up an endowment fund so that Matthew’s memory will live on for years to come as new students apply for the award, which will likely be worth from $800 to $1,000 and go to students who most embody his spirit.
“Everything that Matthew was… His honesty, integrity, loyalty, kindness, empathy,” his mother said, adding that he was also a very positive person, even in the face of illness. “He never let it get in his way.”
In order to endow the award, the family needs to raise $25,000, which would be invested through the Royal Ottawa Foundation for Mental Health. Each year, students would submit applications to the university, which would then select finalists. From that group, the family – including his parents, grandparents and three brothers, as well as a wife and daughter – would pick the winner.
Karen Ginsburg said her son’s illness was extremely hard to deal with. He was diagnosed with a form of ulcerative colitis when he was nine years old, and in 2012, he was found to have cancer of the bile duct, a rare complication of ulcerative colitis.
She said it’s normally a slow disease, but in her son’s case, “it went so quickly, there was no time to catch your breath.”
His daughter, two months old at the time of his death, was even delivered early so she would have the chance to meet her father.
“He’s missed more than anything. It’s hard to go on,” his mother said. “This is the only way we could honour him.”
For more information about the Matthew Ginsburg Scholarship Fund, contact [email protected].
