It’s been just another week in the life of Abi Uthamacumaran.

On Monday night, the 17-year-old was at the Montreal Neurological Institute. His mother had been experiencing headaches, as well as pain in her neck and chest.

A CT scan revealed an aneurysm. This confirmed the teenager’s diagnosis, but Uthamacumaran says doctors “wouldn’t listen to a kid.”

There was a more receptive audience at Marymount Academy on Wednesday night. Uthamacumaran, a Grade 11 student at the N.D.G. school, presided at a cancer prevention symposium, a public information session, featuring slides and videos, that is part of his International Baccalaureate program.

I don’t know what Uthamacumaran has planned for the weekend. Maybe he can write a symphony or redesign the Canadiens’ power play.

Tracy Mangan had invited me to meet her student. She has “had the privilege” of teaching Uthamacumaran since Grade 7. Through the subsequent four years, Mangan has marvelled at a prodigy who maintains a healthy balance in his life.

“I was his music teacher and now I’m his IB program coordinator,” said Mangan, who has been at Marymount since 2005. “He’s shared a lot of his research work with me.”

Uthamacumaran plans to study biochemistry and neurology in an MD/PhD program at university. His mentor is Dr. Phil Gold of the McGill University Health Centre, one of Canada’s preeminent cancer researchers.

The teen’s interest in medicine goes back a long way.

“At the age of 3, I took a toy stethoscope and decided this was what I wanted to do,” Uthamacumaran says. “At 6, I would take big medical textbooks and memorize all the organs in the body.”

Lest you suspect the boy MD has become a teenage über-nerd, Mangan emphasizes Uthamacumaran is a well-rounded kid and a popular student at Marymount, where his accomplishments are known and admired.

“Everybody knows who he is, but it doesn’t really matter,” Mangan said. “I think that’s one of the things Abi likes most about this environment.

“He’s an inspiration to those around him,” she added, “but Abi is a regular student. I love (that) we’ve been able to give him that experience.”

“I have the same sense I do at home,” Uthamacumaran said. “At school it’s like being with family, people you love.”

Uthamacumaran says he is stimulated by the ethnic and cultural diversity of Marymount’s 600-student enrolment and the variety of clubs and after-school programs the school offers. He is “always feeding off the energy and ideas” of schoolmates.

Uthamacumaran paints, writes poetry and was a member of the English Montreal School Board Chorale and the Marymount choir. That’s when he was a soprano, before his voice and scientific interests deepened.

He has a younger brother and sister at the school. The Uthamacumaran children were born in Montreal after his parents, who are Tamil, came here from Sri Lanka.

“My parents motivated us to get into the sciences,” he says, “and to make a contribution and an impact on society.”

When he was at Coronation elementary school, Uthamacumaran worked on a robotics program. He travelled abroad, to Japan in 2005 and Germany in ’06, to participate in science competitions.

For the German competition, the students created Scibot, a robot Uthamacumaran says was “as tall as me at the age of 10.” For the exhibit, Uthamacumaran dressed as a mad scientist and danced to James Brown’s I Feel Good while the robot replicated his movements.

Cancer research is more complex and involves less dancing. Uthamacumaran’s study of the disease has led him to a holistic approach that emphasizes the steps one can take to reduce the risk of contracting the disease.

“Dietary options, nutrition, daily activities and the radiation sources you’re surrounded by, like television and music players,” Uthamacumaran said. “Everything we do today in modern society in an industrialized world, how do they impact the occurrence rate of cancer?”

During the seminar at Marymount, he also stressed the importance of tests such as mammograms and colonoscopies: “You have to take care of yourself. This is your priority.”

From the mouths of precocious babes.

mboone@ montrealgazette.com