Dr. Kareem Morant takes his job to heart
May 21, 2021
The results of a career aptitude test Kareem Morant took in high school suggested he should become a family physician.
“I wasn’t too familiar with the profession at the time, but I was good in science and math and a teacher even told me I should become a dentist,” he recounted. “My reaction was, ‘I am not sure if I can do that’.”
Though an exceptional basketball player in high school, Morant recognized that the chances of becoming a medical doctor were significantly higher than making a professional hoops team.
He was also smart enough to realize that the leadership and communication skills he demonstrated on the basketball court could be transferred to any workplace.
Entering Western University, Morant knew what career he would be pursuing.
“I was playing a lot of basketball and was hoping to make the Western team,” said the St. Joseph Secondary School graduate. “However, I made the first cut and quit because I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do both. That was it.”
Morant’s first choice was McMaster University.
Failing to be accepted into the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine three-year program that uses a problem-based approach to learning and provides students with early exposure to patients and case management, he settled for Western.
“They have a good reputation when it comes to science and there was a strong Caribbean Students organization that I heard about,” Morant said. “I also wanted to get away from my parents home in Mississauga, become independent and grow up. Western provided me with everything that I was looking for.”
Completing undergraduate studies in Medical Science in 2006, Morant spent four years at the University of Ottawa attending medical school before returning to Western in 2010 to do internal medicine.
After three years, he entered the University of Toronto Cardiology division that’s the largest in Canada and, in 2016, completed a one-year Advanced Echocardiography Fellowship at the Mayo Clinic’s College of Medicine & Science in Rochester, Minnesota.
Dr. Vuyisile Nkomo was Morant’s research adviser at the Mayo Clinic.
“He really helped me with my adjustment at the clinic and becoming a staff cardiologist while igniting my interest in research,” he said. “Dr. Nkomo is a great example of the type of academic cardiologist I would want to be.”
Back in Canada in 2017, Morant was unable to secure employment in a hospital.
“It was a bit of struggle,” he admitted. “I worked at other cardiologists offices and covered doctors in hospitals in Ontario before finally landing a full-time job at North York General Hospital (NYGH) two years ago. I see patients there and have my own practice as well.”
Last August, Morant was appointed Director of the Graham & Audrey Rosenberg Family Cardiac Care Clinic at NYGH.
Dr. Kareem Morant (Photo contributed)
Patients suffering from heart failure that’s a chronic illness affecting nearly 600,000 Canadians annually and the leading cause of hospital admissions for adults 65 years and older are treated at the outpatient clinic.
“My job there is to help make decisions about how to improve the care and overall process of how patients are treated,” said Morant who completed an Observership in Heart Failure at Toronto General Hospital. “Within that, I am also working to establish the clinic as a Centre of Excellence for cardiac amyloidosis (also known as ATTR) that affects a lot of Afro-Caribbean patients as well. That’s another reason why I am very interested in that disease process.”
ATTR is characterized by abnormal protein (amyloids) deposits in the body’s organs, including the heart.
The accumulation of deposits, says Morant, causes the heart tissue to thicken and stiffen, impacting the heart’s ability to pump effectively.
He collaborated with colleagues in NYGH’s Medical Imaging department to introduce a novel diagnostic technique to identify suspected cases of ATTR.
The PYP scan is considered a new technology in the cardiology field.
“We started doing it about a year ago,” he said. “The scan is pretty much a simple test. It’s a nuclear test that was done many years ago. Now, it’s found a new role in diagnosing people with cardiac amyloidosis and it’s one of the most important tests in making the diagnosis. It’s now expanding to many hospitals.”
Cardiologists diagnose, assess and treat patients with diseases and defects of the heart and blood vessels.
“It’s a very interesting specialty in that you can do a lot for patients,” said Morant who is an Assistant Adjunct Professor at the U of T. “You also see patients that are very sick with acute heart attacks and problems with slow heart rates and you have to do procedures for them. I can see people chronically for many, many years, maybe after they have had a heart attack. The relationship between a cardiologist and their patient, I find, is a unique one in medicine. People trust their cardiologists and value their opinion. It’s such a thinking person’s specialty in that you have to solve problems.”
The encouragement and support of Dr. Michael Froeschl was critical in Morant choosing to specialize in cardiology.
The interventional cardiologist was the cardiology content expert for the undergraduate medical training program at the University of Ottawa.
“I remember being in an open atrium area after school one day and seeing him in the distance,” said Morant. “I was too shy to go and talk to him. He came over, asked what I was doing and suggested I come into cardiology. He felt it was something I would be good at and even offered me to follow him around as a medical student after class hours. I did that for a few sessions and really fell in love with the specialty from there. I remember thinking at the time it was too hard and the road was too long because it does take longer than a lot of other specialties. He always kept encouraging me, saying ‘ do something you love to do and don’t worry about long it’s going to take’.”
Froeschl is honoured and extremely touched to know he impacted Morant's decision to pursue cardiology.
“I was lucky to have Kareem in my small group of eight medical students who were learning about the cardiovascular system during their first year at the University of Ottawa,” said the Director of the Adult Cardiology Residency Training program. “He was simply the perfect student in that he was smart, inquisitive, hardworking, genuinely interested in the subject matter and committed to learning the material.
“After he graduated from medical school, I had the opportunity to watch him practice medicine at the bedside during a residency elective. Not surprisingly, he displayed all of the qualities he demonstrated in medical school and a genuine care for the patients he was looking after. He is thoughtful and considerate and one gets the strong sense that he’s kind by nature and that he was raised to be a good person. I am sure he is highly valued by his patients and I am very proud that I played a part in his medical training.”
Along the way, a few Black physicians in the Greater Toronto Area contributed to Morant’s development.
His family physician, Jamaican-born Dr. Dennis Forrester who graduated from Calabar High School in 1969 and completed a Master’s in Medical Engineering at the University of Toronto before doing his residency at Toronto General Hospital, connected him with Dr. Renee Beach who is a dermatologist.
“Renee helped me to get into medical school,” he pointed out. “Her husband (Dr. Husam Abdel-Qadir) is a cardiologist who is a couple years ahead of me and he encouraged me to come to Toronto for cardiology. That network of people has really assisted me.”
At a very young age, Morant was motivated to pursue higher education and strive for excellence.
His father, Lincoln Morant, has a PhD. in Electrical, Electronics & Communications Engineering from Carleton University and his mother, Barbara Morant, was an X-ray technologist. The Jamaican immigrants are retired.
“Seeing a photo in the family home of my father receiving his PhD. when I was about a year old was always in my mind,” said Morant. “I played a lot of sports when I was growing up, but they made sure I knew education was the priority. When I came home with a 96 per cent mark in Math, my dad asked what happened with the four per cent. They were very committed to seeing me doing well and made sacrifices to ensure I got everything I needed to succeed.”
Married since August 2013 to Emily Morant who is a family physician, the couple has two young children.
When he isn’t busy seeing patients or spending quality time with his family, Morant enjoys watching the Toronto Raptors and collecting retro High Top sneakers.
“I grew up in Mississauga playing basketball in the era of seeing Michael Jordan play and wearing Nike shoes,” he said. “I still have shoes from high school that are in great shape.”
Next on his collection list is First Jordan One Colour.
