He said training health-care students in their first year to reflect on stereotypes and Canada’s colonial legacy will allow them to become better clinicians and see every patient as an individual. The name of the program — UBC 23-24 Indigenous Cultural Safety Interdisciplinary Learning Experience — is a response to calls for actions 23 and 24 from a report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. First-year medical student Dakota Peacock said health-care professionals have a lot to learn about “cultural humility” involving Indigenous populations subjected to systemic racism that caused them to distrust those treating them. “I’m hoping to learn what we as health-care professionals can do to mend the divide between medical professionals and Indigenous Peoples, a divide that has been created as a result of the residential school system,” said Peacock. Dr. Nadine Caron, co-director of the Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Health at UBC, said the training will provide health-care students opportunities to work in environments where they understand some of the root causes of health determinants, such as poverty.

Source: National Post October 20, 2017 07:52 UTC