Being Indigenous in med school

06/28/22 • 31 min

Sound Mind: conversations about physician wellness and medical culture

Medical school is tough enough. For Indigenous students, it can also be fraught with racism, and the pressure to share their cultural ‘expertise’ with teachers and classmates.

“A lot of the time, the stereotypes they’ve grown up with, their internal bias, the racism they don’t realize is there, comes to the surface, and it can be very traumatic as an Indigenous student to hear that, to sit through that, to sometimes have the questions directed at you.” - Jayelle Friesen-Enns

On this episode of Sound Mind, Dr. Caroline Gerin-Lajoie speaks to Josha Rafael from McMaster University and Jayelle Friesen-Enns from the University of Manitoba, about the blessings and burdens of being an Indigenous role model, and where they find support.

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Physician Wellness: A Perspective from Indigenous Medical Students | CMA

Being a culturally safe physician | CMA

Medical school is tough enough. For Indigenous students, it can also be fraught with racism, and the pressure to share their cultural ‘expertise’ with teachers and classmates.

--------------------------------------------

Physician Wellness: A Perspective from Indigenous Medical Students | CMA

Being a culturally safe physician | CMA

Previous Episode

The benefits of team-based care

The shortage of health care workers in Canada is a growing crisis. The daily tradeoffs of caring for patients while keeping up with administrative demands is leading to burnout – and prompting some professionals to trade private clinics and hospitals for team-based practices.

“Working in a team makes me feel valued. I feel like I have a team that supports me just as much as I support the physician... There's no worrying about rushing to finish your shift and having to choose between not giving care rounds to my patients or not documenting in the EMR.” – Shawna Pasiciel, HealthWORX Medical Clinic

In this episode, host Dr. Caroline Gérin‐Lajoie speaks to Vancouver family doctor Christie Newton and registered nurse Shawna Pasiciel, of Medicine Hat, Alberta, about the wellness benefits of interprofessional collaboration – both for health care professionals and their patients.
If you're looking for resources, tools, and research on the topics covered today, please visit the CMA Physician Wellness Hub at cma.ca.

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On this episode of Sound Mind, Dr. Katharine Smart joins host Dr. Caroline Gérin‐Lajoie to reflect on a year of doctor-to-doctor conversations across the country while advocating for physicians’ well-being.

Sound Mind: conversations about physician wellness and medical culture - Being Indigenous in med school

Transcript

Dr. Caroline Gérin-Lajoie:

Welcome to Sound Mind, a podcast about physician wellness and medical culture. I'm your host, Dr. Caroline Gérin-Lajoie. I'm recording this podcast from my home in Ottawa, Ontario, the traditional unseeded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people. I also wanted to highlight that June is National Indigenous History Month. In 2019, Canada's 17 medical schools unanimously endorsed a joint action plan on Indigenous health in response