Dr. Mladen Vranic awarded by honorary degree from the University of Toronto

Mladen Vranic, Professor Emeritus of the Departments of Physiology and Medicine of the University of Toronto, is an internationally renowned figure in the field of diabetes research. He was born in Zagreb, Croatia and completed his MD and DSc at the Medical School, University of Zagreb, where his father was Professor and Dean at the Faculties of Economics and Engineering. Professor Charles Best, a co-discoverer of insulin, invited him to the University of Toronto in 1963 as his last Postdoctoral Fellow. He became ful1 professor of Physiology and Medicine in 1972 and was Chair of the Physiology Department from 1991-1995.
Dr. Vranic’,s discoveries concerning the relationship between exercise, stress and diabetes have had tremendous impact on individuals suffering from this disease. His ground-breaking studies have opened many doors for diabetics, including participation in Olympic Games. His development of tracer methods revolutionized the field of glucose turnover in physiology and diabetes, paving the way for clinical investigation leading to the translation of basic science to practice. He led the first international symposium on exercise and diabetes, which had a huge impact, facilitating the evidence of epidemiologists that exercise can prevent diabetes. His discovery of extrapancreatic glucagon changed existing dogma that pancreatic hormone is synthesized in only one gland. He demonstrated mechanisms whereby the muscle and the liver are protected against hyperglycemia and therefore, against diabetic complications. He pioneered the concept that some stresses are beneficial for diabetes and is currently developing methods to prevent hypoglycemia in type 1 diabetes.
Honours include Orders of Canada (Officer), and Ontario, and Laureate of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. Inaugural awards include the Canadian Diabetes Associatiorls Lifetime Achievement as well as Banting and Best Memorial Award, and the Mizuno Lectureship and Award from Japan. He is the only Canadian to receive the Banting Medal and Lectureship for Distinguished scientific Achievement and the Albert Renold Award for the training of students and Fellows who are now leaders in the field of diabetes research. He received the Solomon A. Berson Distinguished Lectureship from the American Physiological Society. During sabbaticals he has been an Invited professor at the University of Geneva and Oxford University and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, Croatian Academy of Arts and Science (corresponding member), and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Dr. Vranic holds honorary degrees from the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, and the University of Saskatchewan, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the first graduating class.
Source www.convocation.utoronto.ca

Dr. Charles Best, co-discoverer of insulin, with dr. Mladen Vranić in Geneva 1962.
Source of the photo Dubravko Barač: Zagrepčanin u kući slavnih Kanađana,
Hrvatski iseljenički zbornik 2011, [PDF]

I urge each of you to take the time to learn the human stories behind various medical discoveries that have shaped modern healthcare. Your appreciation of the changes in the knowledge base of your profession will be greatly enhanced if you can put new advances into perspective. Aside from that sense of PERSPECTIVE, what else might help you to thrive in the years ahead? I do not have any magic formula, but I would go so far as to suggest three keys to a fulfilling life – … PASSION, ORIGINALITY, and PERSEVERANCE. Let me start with PASSION. It’s the equivalent of a GPS for the road of life. Sometimes it may take a little while to recognize what you’re actually passionate about. For example, when I was in an Italian concentration camp, I took classes in Latin. My teacher in despair told me that I might be better suited to milking the cows. I milked the cows with great enthusiasm, but without success. At the end of the day, I was returned to the Latin teacher!
It was 10 years later when I stumbled into the field that was to become my life’s work. I have never regretted for one instant my commitment to a life in medical research and education. It has been a wonderful journey, and I hope yours is every bit as fulfilling as mine has been. The second attribute that I believe will help chart your course is ORIGINALITY. The great American poet, Robert Frost, in his famous piece “The Road Not Taken” captured what I have seen so many successful people do. He writes:-
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Indeed, all of us are always facing major choices. Please consider taking the road “less traveled”. That is the route to originality, which in my opinion is the key to making a difference in any discipline or any profession.
I would add, in this respect, that in many professions, especially medicine, things move so quickly that it is easy to run down the road at breakneck speed, never stopping to smell the flowers. I urge you all to remember the inspiration that can be derived from great music and the enduring insights of great literature. For example, some 120 years ago, the Great Russian writer, Feodor Dostoyevsky, in his book “The Brothers Karamazov”, spoke about the problem with too many specialties in medicine. He said that soon, there would be a different specialist for both the left and right nostrils! Please try to be enough of a generalist to put the pieces together, be it in patient care, research, teaching or anything else you do.
I come now to the final key. Let’s assume that you’ve found what you’re passionate about and that you have innovative and original ideas. I believe there is something else, equally important. And that something is PERSEVERANCE.
Life can be unfair and it can be tough. It’s not easy, to get new and original ideas accepted. In that respect, I titled a recent retrospective “Odyssey between Scylla and Charybdis through storms of carbohydrate metabolism and diabetes”. You may recall that Scylla and Charybdis were two sea monsters in Greek mythology described by Homer. They were located close enough to each other  that they posed an inescapable threat to passing sailors, including Odysseus. Avoiding Charybdis meant passing too close to Scylla and vice versa. Life is full of such challenges. It may sometimes feel as if you need the legendary strength and perseverance of Odysseus to avoid being devoured by sea monsters. But you can and must persevere.
After all, sometimes, things aren’t as bad they seem. Let me give a personal example. About twenty years ago, I had a stroke. On the second day, a neurologist told my wife that the prognosis was terrible, because I had been unable to answer even simple questions. My wife asked him what questions I had failed to answer. The neurologist replied that I’d been unable to identify the parts of a watch – face and hands. To which she replied, “He’s an immigrant. He never learned those words. Try asking him about diabetes.”
In a moment, the neurologist returned with a big smile saying “He is perfectly normal”. I am not sure I have ever been “perfectly normal”, and I still haven’t learned the different parts of a watch! However, I did go on to some of the best years of my career after that serious illness that turned out to be a lot less serious than was first imagined.
The messages here are simple. Be sensible. Keep a sense of humour. Remember that Canada is an incredibly diverse and multicultural country where not everyone will be perfectly fluent in English. And above all, be optimistic. The best is yet to come, and I wish you nothing but great success and happiness from this magical day forward.
Again, warmest congratulations to each and every one of you. And thank you for letting me share this day with you and your loved ones.
Professor Mladen Vranić

Significance of the honorary degree:
“I was honoured to receive the Order of Ontario and the Order of Canada but I think the honorary degree is the greatest honour you can have from your own university. I’ve loved every second of my academic life and it is very rewarding to know that peers consider what I have done to be of value to our society. It validates my life’s work and it’s marvellous to be recognized by my adopted country. It’s a great feeling.”

Thoughts on U of T:
“The University of Toronto is a truly great institution that attracts some of the most outstanding faculty and students from around the world. Early in my career, I was drawn here because of its international research reputation. The discovery of insulin in 1921, in our Department of Physiology, is one of the most important medical breakthroughs ever made and had a profound institutional impact. The excellence of its programs and the collaborative interdisciplinary culture are key to the kind of innovative research that leads to major discoveries.”

The role of the university today:
“Universities are the instruments by which civilization moves forward. They nourish and enable creative thinking and the unbiased search for truth. They encourage meaningful discourse and competitive thinking so that individuals facing everyday challenges can collectively make the country more prosperous. In the field of medicine, the progress has been more spectacular over the past 60 years than ever before, and there is a direct line to the university research that has led to dramatically improved mortality and morbidity throughout the world.”
Source www.utoronto.ca