Freshet News Repost: $50K scholarship helps Coquitlam nurse make leap to medical school
JULY 28, 2026 — Dayton Noga is one of 33 recipients of Beedie Luminaries’ inaugural $50,000 medical award
After watching patients turn to emergency departments because they don’t have a family doctor, Coquitlam nurse Dayton Noga is pursuing family medicine with help from a $50,000 Beedie Luminaries medical scholarship.
Noga, 27, is one of 33 aspiring family doctors to receive the inaugural Beedie Luminaries Family Practice Medical Degree Award. He will join the first class at SFU’s new Stephens Family School of Medicine this fall.
A Douglas College nursing graduate, Noga has worked in emergency nursing for several years, most recently at Royal Columbian Hospital.
Noga said his time in nursing has shown him the consequences of gaps in primary care, as patients arrived at emergency departments with health concerns that could have been better addressed through ongoing care from a family doctor.
“I was kind of getting a little bit tired of seeing people feel really helpless and not having any access to a primary care provider, and that was really rough to watch,” he said.
Those experiences pushed Noga to pursue family medicine.
But after he and his partner purchased a condo in Coquitlam last year, Noga worried leaving nursing for medical school would mean relying more heavily on his partner’s full-time income.
“That’s a lot of pressure. It’s a lot to ask,” he said.
So, when Noga found out about the Beedie Luminaries award in an email from SFU’s medical school, he said he “jumped on it.”
“Then I kind of hoped for the best.”
Noga learned he had been awarded the scholarship during one of his last shifts as a nurse.
“It was such an immediate weight off my shoulder,” he said.
The financial support, Noga said, will allow him to go “all in” on his schooling.
For Noga, SFU’s new medical school was a logical choice. He described the school as “the first of its kind in Western Canada in the last 60 years,” adding that he was excited by a new curriculum built around current medical knowledge and emerging technologies.
He also appreciated the school’s community focus and was drawn to its emphasis on serving Indigenous communities, people with fewer resources and those struggling with substance use, as well as the involvement of Indigenous leaders and Elders in guiding the curriculum.
“Getting perspective is huge,” Noga said. “Having different ways of knowing and different ways to teach excites me about this school in general.”
He said he plans to practise family medicine and could see himself working in his own clinic while also serving vulnerable populations through sexual-health and substance-use care.
Ryan Beedie, a Burnaby-born-and-raised developer and philanthropist, launched Beedie Luminaries in 2018 with a $50 million commitment to help B.C. students facing financial barriers pursue post-secondary education. This year, the foundation launched its first scholarship for aspiring family doctors, the Family Practice Medical Degree Award.
