On a personal front, Dr. Mailis Gagnon was born in Athens, Greece, where she finished the University of Athens Medical School in 1976. She started her residency program at a hospital in Athens devoted to respiratory diseases.

As she was keen to pursue further training including research training, she left Greece in June 1978 (as such opportunities did not exist at home), leaving behind her parents and her sister.

By a rather strange twist, her original acceptance in Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital to start an Internship in July 1978, was turned down by Immigration Canada. Subsequently, she was offered a position in the same hospital's newly founded Rehab facility, as a resident in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, that luckily still had a few openings.

Dr. Mailis Gagnon finished her specialty training in 1982 and obtained her Masters degree from the Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto, in 1988.

Her husband whom she had met and married in Greece joined her in 1980 in Toronto. Her first son, Nicholas came to this world on April 2, 1985 and her second son, Alex, was born on September 25, 1986.

Dr. Mailis Gagnon continued as a very busy mother and professional throughout the years.

By 1995, her marriage was dissolved while she retained full custody of her sons. She was re-married in 2002. In 2005, the couple moved from East York to the country, in a rural property with acreage.

On a personal front, Dr. Mailis Gagnon has pursued martial arts training and obtained a black belt in Tae Kwon Do in 2000. She has taken dance lessons as well as vocal lessons for years. She is a gym fanatic and trains regularly for the past 20 years. Additionally, she loves riding her Harley Davidson motorcycle alone or with her husband, during the weekends, weather permitting, for the past 9 years.

Mailis Gagnon is very close to her sons, two accomplished young men in their studies and the pursue of their careers. She collaborates closely with her husband, a computer animator, in creating educational booklets and medical animation for educational purposes. The couple's work can be seen at www.elafi.biz.

What does she foresee in the future? Just the same good, multifaceted and extremely busy life she has been living for years with her husband, her kids and her pain team. She likes very much everything she does. Her only (chronic) complaint is that her day "has only 24 hours"!