b"INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVEAll Indigenous patients deserve culturally safe care, and a significant part of that is having physicians on a care team that understand what traditional Indigenous healing and wellness practices are so they can integrate these things as part of a care plan. I don't think you can have patient-centred care without the patient's needs and beliefs driving that process.Dr. Jamaica Cass, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityDr. Evan Adams recalls his own experi- not even very much transparency as tomedical schools have developed their ence in med school in the 1990s. Deputywhat that process involves or what mightown Indigenous admissions policies. chief medical officer at First Nations Healthbe different for an Indigenous admissionsBut these policies themselves face chal-Authority, Adams is currently on leave toprocess versus the general applicationlenges. Almost all medical schools require study Indigenous medical education atprocess. They all kind of do it on their own. a proof of ancestry process to reduce the the John A. Burns School of Medicinerisk of Indigenous identity fraud, and this at the University of Hawaii at Mnoa asBEST PRACTICES only adds to an already onerous applica-a 202425 Canadian Harkness Fellow inThe National Consortium for Indigenoustion process. The policies are still seen Health Care Policy and Practice. Adams isMedical Education (NCIME) has publishedin some quarters as unfairly advantaging also a former associate dean at the newa catalogue of best practices coveringIndigenous applicants and disadvantaging School of Medicine being founded atIndigenousadmissions,anti-racism,non-Indigenous onesan attitude that can Simon Fraser University, which is set toIndigenous cultural safety (ICS) training,dog Indigenous physicians throughout be the first medical school in Canadahiring of Indigenous faculty and othertheir medical careers.to embed First Nations, Inuit and Mtisissues. NCIME is a partnership between knowledge systems and perspectives.the Indigenous Physicians Association ofNCIME reports that medical schools are Back then, I didn't realize how theCanada and a number of national medicalprimarily seeking to increase Indigenous medical schools were not well armedorganizations, including the Associationadmissions by getting more Indigenous to train us, says Adams, who is Coastof Faculties of Medicine of Canada. Casslearners into undergraduate medical Salish from the Tla'amin (Sliammon)was a peer reviewer for the catalogue.education (UGME) programs but adds that First Nation. They were learning howthis focus doesnt address the myriad colo-to accept us, but they were still learningAdmissions tops the list of NCIMEsnial barriers that could have been encoun-how to train us. And I think theyre stillbest practices. Today, most Canadiantered pre- and post-UGME training.learning how to get doctors ready, espe-cially Indigenous doctors, to work in Indigenous communities.Dr. Jamaica Cass would agree. Cass is a member of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, Turtle Clan, and serves as Indigenous health lead and special advisor to the Dean of Indigenous Resurgence at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU). She is also an assistant professor with the Office of Indigenous Resurgence in Medicine and Healthcare at the TMU School of Medicine, and board treasurer of the Indigenous Physicians Association of Canada (IPAC).When I went to medical school, I didn't know an Indigenous doctor, Cass says. There wasn't a single other IndigenousA PROUD MEMBER OFstudent. Now all Canadian medical schools have a dedicated Indigenous admissions pathway or process. But there isn't any standardization and sometimes Indigenous BUSINESS REPORT63"