From Different Worlds to White Coats: Emilie Harley

Editor’s note: This three-part series shares the stories of three medical students and how their unique backgrounds shaped their journeys to medical school.

She was born in Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, and grew up in Syracuse. Her dad had been a hockey player and goalie in college, and he encouraged Harley and her brothers to take up the sport.

She played continuously from a very young age and eventually entered the Ontario Hockey Academy in Cornwall, Ontario, for three years in high school.

In addition to hockey, Harley had long been interested in science and medicine. While attending Robert Morris University near Pittsburgh, she worked at a pharmacy and as a scribe for an orthopedic clinic. And as much as she loved playing hockey, she planned to enter medical school right after college. 

Throughout college, Harley continued to shine on the ice. While part of the university’s ice hockey team, she received the university’s Presidential Scholar-Athlete award and was named a student athlete of the year. As a senior, she and her team won the College Hockey America league championships and went on to the NCAA Tournament.

A forward when she started college, Harley switched to playing defense to fill an injured teammate’s position. “We had an injury on the team, and I raised my hand and said, ‘I can skate backwards pretty well.’”

Soon, recruiters from the Buffalo Beauts, Buffalo’s former professional women’s ice hockey team, took notice of Harley’s skills. “At the end of my senior year, I got pulled into my coach’s office, and he told me, ‘I have the general manager of the Buffalo Beauts here. Is it OK if they talk to you?’ I said yeah, absolutely.”

After speaking with the team’s coach and general manager, she was offered a spot on the team. “They thought I had some talent, and they’d like to draft me,” she recalls.

But what about medical school?

It would have to wait. After asking her dad for advice, Harley decided to join the Beauts — deferring, but not dismissing, her medical school ambitions.

So Harley moved to Buffalo and spent a year playing for the Buffalo Beauts in 2021. After that, she played hockey for the New Jersey-based Metropolitan Riveters for a year.

Then, when the women’s hockey league restructured, both of Harley’s former teams were eliminated. “I thought of continuing to play because I loved it,” Harley says. “But instead of inspiring and entertaining people through the game, I couldn't shake the itch of wanting to improve people's lives directly through their health.”

At last, it was time for medical school. Now at the Jacobs School, Harley says that playing hockey for so long imparted valuable and applicable skills for studying medicine. “I think there are a lot of skills that would carry over from hockey, or any sport in general, especially discipline and time management,” she says.

Being a lifelong athlete inevitably means suffering injuries, which, in Harley’s case, better prepared her for medical school. “I had learned what ligaments specifically in my ankle and in my foot and leg were torn and stretched,” she says, recalling a high school hockey injury. “So when we came to anatomy first year, I was like, oh, I’ve heard of that before.”

Harley is still involved with ice hockey, mainly as a coach these days. She coaches two Junior Sabres girls teams, part of the Buffalo Sabres youth hockey organization.