Preparing for adulthood: Teen apprenticeship program at Montreal Children’s Hospital
Posted August 11, 2026 5:57 pm.
Everyone knows the transition from teen to adult isn’t easy. The Montreal’s Children’s hospital is running a two-week program, the Pediatric-Adult Transition Hub (PATH-ETAP), to help young people aged 14 to 18 prepare for just that.
“If I have a one job in my life, I’m gonna work (at the hospital),” said Nathan Renaud Beaudin, a participant in the program.
Nathan is happy to be apprenticing at the library, working at reception and helping patients and their families.
“Working at the hospital is very good because you can help people, you feel like you help people to be good,” he said.
The program is in its second year, free and open to the community at large. It’s focused on teens who have faced barriers related to health, disability or interrupted education.
“It’s been really amazing to follow and see how they grow and develop throughout all of our programming,” said Elisa Nguyen, a transition consultant at PATH-ÉTAP.
“They develop the kind of confidence and the skills in our apprenticeship program. Last year, a lot of the teens gave that feedback that they felt a lot more confident in doing simple work readiness skills like sending an email. And even the professional allies that were following them had really seen how they grew in the short span of the two weeks of our program,” she said.
Dr. Gabriel Kuper, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon resident at the Montreal University Hospital Centre (MUHC), shared his story with the teens during a workshop.
“When I was younger, my dad left and my mom was left to raise my older sister, younger brother and I, alone, and times were pretty tough. Money was always a big concern and I ended up dropping out of high school when I was 16. I ended up working full-time. I didn’t think that post-secondary education was ever in my future,” he said.
It was a long road to medical school, but after getting his prerequisites, he was accepted at McMaster University as a mature student and worked in medical sales after graduating. But his lifelong dream was to become a doctor.
“I started medical school at 29 years old,” Dr. Kuper said. “Now I’m in my second year residency and I’m 34 years old. … I felt very lost when I was at that age and so I could imagine there’s just so many unknown variables of life at that point. You don’t have any experience because all you know is contained to your house, in your school, and then he activities you do outside of them.”
Dr. Kuper has amassed a social media following to inspire others to pursue their dreams.
“It’s so easy to compare yourself to other people, like I did a lot of of the time when I was younger, but to realize that you’re on your own journey and that there’s no one right path to get there,” said Dr. Kuper.
