By Utkarsh Piyush
A 27-year-old medical student, Zachery Dereniowski, who aims to empower other’s lives.
Since a young age, he believes in the formula “Vulnerability = Relatability = Empowerment”. Zachery wants to provide a voice to people dealing with mental health issues. Also, he wants to help and educate pre-medical students to get into medical school.
Zachery who is born in Windsor, “Automotive Capital of Canada”, is a city in Ontario, Canada, across the Detroit River from the U.S. city of Detroit. He has a dual U.S. and Canadian citizenship.
Zachery is a medical student at the University of Sydney in Australia pursuing his Post-Graduation in Medicine Program. He did his Bachelor of Human Kinetics in 2016 from the University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, and thereafter his Post-Baccalaureate in Pre-Medical Studies in December 2017 from Lawrence Technological University, Southfield, MI.
Zachery has been a motivational speaker, from the time he stood up from his failures and decided to never look back. Once when he failed to score well in the first year of college with a 0.59 GPA, was Required to Withdraw from the Biochemistry program, and was also told, “Zachary, maybe college isn’t right for you.” From then and there he stood up and did well. He completed his studies and prepared for MCAT and scored over 510 in his first attempt.
The idea of inspiring others came up when Zachery shared his freshman year story on Instagram and people related to his story. He then started hosting Instagram lives and talking about his struggles and now guides students all around the world. Thereafter he began working as an MCAT tutor, which lead to a direct job proposal from Examkrackers, as their first and only MCAT Mentor. Zachery is now, one of TikTok’s top mental health advocates. He reached over 500K followers on TikTok in the past two months. He has been interviewed by the Sydney Herald in regards to his account.
Zachery has an incredible approach towards life, someone who truly lives for “I think life is not about you or me. I think life is about the footprint we leave in bettering the lives of others.” He believes life should not be only thinking about oneself but it is way more than that, moreover, it is how impactful are your life and experiences are for the betterment of others. He remarked, “I hope to continue to remain transparent and empower others to use their voice to do the same. To speak up for support from family/loved ones and seek professional support when concerned. I am by no means a doctor yet, and my goal is not to diagnose anyone ever. I hope people recognize that they matter, that they are not alone and they are worthy of recovering from whatever they are going through.”
Zachery is fond of playing basketball with Kobe Bryant being his favourite player. He considers himself a scary movie buff. Zachery usually takes spontaneous road trips. When asked him about his favourite holiday destination he said,” Towering rainforests, waterfalls, penguins, dolphins, fur seal colonies and the natural beauty of New Zealand put this destination at the top of my list.”
