Temerty Medicine student selected as Rhodes Scholar

Adham Elsherbini, a second-year MD student at the University of Toronto's Temerty Faculty of Medicine, says he was very surprised to find out he was one of 11 Canadian students recently selected for a Rhodes Scholarship.

Elsherbini says he applied for the prestigious award at the urging of one of his mentors. He went through the application process with limited hope he would land the sought-after scholarship, which will cover his expenses to do his Doctor of Philosophy in Surgical Sciences at Oxford University.

“I am definitely excited. I never expected this to be my trajectory,” says Elsherbini, who is based at Temerty Medicine’s Mississauga Academy of Medicine. He says he wants to focus his studies at Oxford on exploring how digital tools like machine learning and artificial intelligence can improve cardiac care.

“A mentor of mine urged me to apply, and their confidence in me motivated me to go for it,” he says. “When I got the call, I felt very, very grateful. I feel very humbled to have this opportunity.”

Elsherbini says he plans to start his studies at Oxford in the fall of 2026, and then return to U of T in 2029 to finish the third year and fourth year of the MD program. He has a breadth of experience to draw on as he tackles the next leg of his academic journey.

Born in Damietta, Egypt, Elsherbini immigrated to Canada with his family when he was six years old. He lived in Mississauga for about a year, and then moved to Winnipeg, where he went to school for five years.

“I struggled to fit in initially,” he says. At the urging of a teacher at his Winnipeg school, he joined the debate team.

“That was a really great way for me to learn, socialize, and meet people. It’s also how my English got much better, and it was my introduction to a formal academic and professional space,” he says.

Debating was an activity Elsherbini did for years and led him to consider becoming a lawyer. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, his thinking shifted.

“There were a lot of close friends and family that I saw getting sick, and that was my main exposure to the health care system,” he says. “I started seeing the relationship between doctors and the vulnerability that patients had with physicians, and that was something that really motivated me. I was really inspired by that.”

At the time of this realization, Elsherbini was in grade 11 in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where his parents and three siblings had moved in 2020.

Now knowing that health care was where he wanted to direct himself, Elsherbini returned to Ontario in 2021 to do a Bachelor of Health Sciences at Queen’s University. There, he did work with volunteer groups, like international non-profit organizations and in local penitentiaries.

He says mentorship he’s received from medical leaders has played a huge role in his development as a student, and it’s a gift he hopes to pay forward to others. He specifically credits Professor Maha Othman, at Queen’s, and Professors Adam Mosa, Kevin Zuo and Steve Singh, at Temerty Medicine, as people who have offered him valuable career insights and opportunities.

He also says being part of the leadership team for the MD program’s 2025 O-Week had a massive influence on his University of Toronto experience, and taught him new skills. 

“My orientation week was super transformational and made me really excited for this path,” he says. “Being on the leadership committee of Team BLAST meant I got to learn a lot, and it also made me connected to the staff at Mississauga and St. George campuses, and to other students.”

Elsherbini is excited about the work he’ll be doing as a Rhodes Scholar. He says the research he hopes to do at Oxford signifies promise for the future of medicine, particularly as it pertains to global health equity.

“I have a passion to see how digital health tools — things like machine learning and artificial intelligence — can be applied to increase access to global surgery. I want to increase the efficiency that doctors operate at, so they are able to provide more safe and accessible surgeries, especially in lower-income and middle-income countries,” he says.