Temerty Medicine program inspires Indigenous youth to consider future in health care
Before last summer, Charli Mackay hadn’t pictured a career in medical imaging.
The tenth-grade student took part in the ZKA’AN NI-BMIWDOOWIN GCHI-KINOOMAADWINAN, (ZNBGK) program at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine this past August.
What she saw in the program, which she completed alongside her sister and eight other high-school students, helped bring the idea of a career in health care into sharper focus.
“ZNBGK really opened my eyes to pursuing a career in the medical sciences,” says Mackay. “It was exciting to see just how broad the field is. There are so many more options available than I had realized. I’m really drawn to research and imaging.”
The program, also known as ‘Building the Fire, Walking with Medicine,’ runs for one week each summer at Temerty Medicine.
The program aims to increase Indigenous participation in health-care professions. It provides students in grades nine and ten with culturally appropriate programming that includes land-based learning experiences, opportunities to build relationships with mentors and one another, and exposure to Indigenous leadership, knowledges, governance systems and healing practices.
The program launched as a pilot in 2021 and is a collaboration between Temerty Medicine and Ganawishkadawe – the Centre for Wise Practices in Indigenous Health at Women’s College Hospital.
This year, Temerty Medicine’s office of Indigenous health and office of access and outreach leveraged relationships between the organizations to provide participants with more varied clinical experiences and programming.
"The proportion of Indigenous faculty members is small, so it’s critical to think and collaborate across institutions,” says Ryan Giroux, Indigenous health lead for postgraduate medical education at Temerty Medicine. “If this program only operated within a single organization, that we would risk not being able to provide the community what they need.”
This year’s session included a lab tour at the MaRS Discovery District; drop-in chats with Women’s College Hospital CEO Heather McPherson, Professors Dana Ross and Jason Pennington, and current Indigenous medical students; an image-based journaling workshop with postdoctoral fellow Lisa Boivin; and a holistic healing session with Professor Chase McMurren.
Students also took part in simulation activities at Unity Health Toronto’s Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute.
“Simulation in health care is often thought of as a way to teach someone how to do a task, but it offers far more than that,” says Doug Campbell, a professor of paediatrics at Temerty Medicine who co-led the simulation session with Giroux. “We’ve always kept in mind that we can advocate and share educational experiences with the community.”
The students sat in on a short lecture about the work paediatricians or neonatologists do. Then, they had the opportunity to don gloves and gowns and see what it’s like to insert an umbilical vein catheter and ventilate and possibly intubate a mannequin of a newborn.
“I believe we have an obligation to open doors to historically marginalized communities. As we open our eyes to what's happened in the past, we also need to think about how we interact day-to-day with people in the future, says Campbell, who is also director of the Allan Waters Patient Simulation Centre at Unity Health. “Our duty to care needs to continually evolve. We have an obligation to move forward on the path of reconciliation.”
Students also toured First Nations House, visited the Earth Sciences Courtyard, learned about the supports and resources available to Indigenous learners and took part in drumming, songs and smudging.
The program was led by Elder-in-Residence Kawennanoron Cindy White, who offered traditional teachings and spiritual guidance throughout the week.
Mackay says she was particularly inspired by wisdom from White, who described some of her own struggles after college and how she became more involved with traditional teachings and became an Elder.
“She really emphasized that better is always possible,” says Mackay.
