Between Two Dots PodcastEpisode 181 – Dr. SimonBryantSimon Bryant came into the shop to get his car undercoated. He left with a podcast invitation. That's how it starts with Simon — a stranger, a conversation, and somethingthat stays with you long after. Born in Coventry, England, Simon crossed the Atlantic byboat at age three, grew up in a secular, book-filled, television-free home with libertarian parents who thought nothing of letting their 13-year-old cycle solo from Montreal to ancouver — 100 miles a day. He dropped out of university at 17, traveled the world for eight years, survived a near head-on collision with a tractor trailer in Kitimat that quietly rearranged his priorities, and eventually returned to school. He graduated from medical school at 30 and spent the next 35 years doing almost everything a physician could do: hospitalist, rural and remote medicine across Alberta, a decade serving Inuit communities in the Canadian Arctic, search and rescue on a Doctors Without Borders ship in the Mediterranean — pulling over 7,000 asylum seekers out of rubber dinghies. He worked in the emergency department and ICU in Taliban-adjacent Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan. Then, for the last several years of his career, medical assistance in dying. He retired on December 31st, 2024, and spent the next month learningto sail in the Caribbean. Between two dots – “Really, the value is in that line: thejourney.” "The reasons I started aren't the reasons I continue. It stopped being about me. If something needs doing and nobody elseis doing it — why not me? Why not now?" – Dr. Simon Bryant Episode Highlights: 00:00:00 – Introduction & Guest Overview00:01:05 – Born in England, Raised Everywhere: A Libertarian Childhood Without TV00:05:48 – Cycling Solo Across Canada at 13: 100 Miles a Day00:11:11 – A Near-Death Experience & Finding Purpose Through Travel00:22:27 – 35 Years of Medicine: Hospitalist, the Arctic & Doctors Without Borders00:29:15 – Sponsor Ad Break00:31:31 – Medical Assistance in Dying: Why He Chose the Work Nobody Else Would00:39:47 – Ego, Service & the Moment It Stopped Being About Him00:49:47 – Live with Purpose, Stay Curious: Lessons from a Life Well Done00:56:52 – Outro & Call to Action Sponsors of this episode: Bloom Benefits Group: www.bloombenefits.ca Zelos Investment Counsel: www.zelosglobal.com Airways Krown: www.krown.com Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the hosts and the guests do not necessarily reflect any agency, organization, or affiliated companies.
