Greece's loss is Canada's gain.

When Dimitrios Oreopoulos finished medical school in Athens and later a doctoral degree from Queen's University in Belfast in 1969, he couldn't find a job practising medicine back home.

"It was March, then April, May and June, but I still couldn't get a job. It was disastrous," recalled Oreopoulos.

When he was offered a fellowship and an educational practice licence by the Toronto Western Hospital, he spoke minimal English but decided to take the one-year contract job anyway.

"I didn't start learning English until I turned 30. I was literally working with my dictionary in my hand. They put me on calls from the first week. You pick up the phone and don't know the language. It gives you goosebumps," said the 68-year-old director of the hospital's peritoneal dialysis program.

From there, Oreopoulos, winner of the 2005 New Pioneers Science and Technology Award, made three other failed attempts to find a medical job in Greece before deciding in 1977 to stay in Canada for good.

"I guess I'm like many new immigrants. When you come to a new country after you are 30, it's hard for you to make new roots. Your roots are already set in your home country. Your physical body is here, but your soul always remains there," noted Oreopoulos, who still travels to Greece once a year.

Born in Alexandroupolis and raised in Athens, Oreopoulos is internationally reputed for simplifying and popularizing the technique of peritoneal dialysis for kidney failure, in which dialysis fluid is introduced into the abdominal cavity through the peritoneum, or surrounding membrane.

The improved medical treatment avoids numerous perforations in the abdominal wall of patients and significantly reduces pain and the rate of infections. He is the first doctor in the world to treat children using peritoneal dialysis.

At the advice of his mentor at the University of Athens, Oreopoulos originally set out to study kidney stones. When he was officially hired by Toronto Western, he was asked to head the then-fledgling dialysis program.

"Life just evolves in ways that you don't know and can't predict," said Oreopoulos, who received the Belding H. Scribner Award from the American Society of Nephrology in 1998 and was honoured four years later with the American Kidney Fund's Torchbearer Award.

"Immigrants are very unique people. God gives them the opportunities to improve themselves, their families and environments by moving them around," added the father of three boys and a girl. "Not everybody can do it. It takes a lot of strength and courage to do it. It is tough, and one needs a lot of perseverance to succeed."

Oreopoulos is the founder and a past-president of the Hellenic Home for the Aged. Between 1997 and 2004, he was the president of Athens Villa, a not-for-profit group that provides affordable housing.