U of S medical program graduates highest percentage of Aboriginal doctors in Canada
- Fraser Needham | July 10, 2015
Aboriginal engagement is one of the core pillars of the University of Saskatchewan’s mandate and it appears the policy is working in terms of student enrolment and graduation numbers.
This spring, the U of S graduated the highest number of Indigenous students in the institution’s history at 363 self-declared Aboriginal students which is roughly 11 per cent of the total graduating class.
These numbers include an impressive 10 Aboriginal out of 84 graduates in the medical doctor program which accounts for roughly 12 per cent – the highest of any medical school in the country.
Lastly, this past fall the highest number of Aboriginal students on record enrolled at the U of S at 2,155 which accounts for about 11 per cent of the total student population.
Keith Carlson is a professor in the Department of History at the University of Saskatchewan and the research chair in Aboriginal and Community-engaged History.
Carlson believes one of the reasons for the improved enrolment and graduation rates is the comprehensive effort across a number of departments at the university to incorporate relevant Aboriginal content into the curriculum.
For example, in the Canadian Aboriginal History class he teaches he has his students look at current Globe and Mail headlines and identify which issues are most affecting Indigenous and non-Indigenous relations.
The students then identify the top eight issues and design a course around looking at how the history of these issues has affected these Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal relations and what might be done to improve them.
“Aboriginal issues aren’t simply something from the past and neither are they something simply a contemporary issue that’s disconnected from history,” he says. “For awhile there, there was an effort 25 years ago to treat Aboriginal people as just another cultural community and obviously that’s not the case. These people have Aboriginal rights based on their prior occupation and that means that has to be situated in a historical context and a contemporary one.”
In the past, Aboriginal students have tended to enroll in the arts and humanities and programs like law rather than in the math and sciences.
However, Carlson says he is not surprised to see a number of Indigenous students entering engineering and medical programs, as this is just a continued progression of identifying community need.
“What we’ve seen for Aboriginal people is much more pragmatic decisions about academic and career paths. They look around in their community and they say, ‘we need social workers or we need teachers.’ Those were the areas back in the 70’s and 80’s where almost all First Nations people were going because that’s where they could have the biggest impact, that’s where they could help their community. Now were seeing that spread. It went to law and Native Studies and now we’re seeing Aboriginal students pop up in engineering, medical schools and the hard sciences. To me, that suggests that there’s still these burning issues in their communities that they want to contribute to, to help to fix or make better.”
Prior to 1992, only three known students of Aboriginal ancestry had graduated from the U of S’s College of Medicine.
At this time, it was decided that three seats in the first year of the medical program would be reserved for students of Indigenous ancestry.
In 2006, this number was increased to 10 per cent of the entering class.
Since the Aboriginal Equity Program was instituted in 1992, 63 Indigenous students have graduated from the College of Medicine.
Val Arnault-Pelletier is the Aboriginal coordinator in the College of Medicine.
She says reserving seats in the program for Aboriginal students has been critical to increasing their enrolment and graduation numbers.
“When we look at Saskatchewan and Canada and the demographics of our people, we certainly aren’t represented yet in medicine but we’re getting there and I would say the last few years have been wonderful. But those early years, I just don’t think our people could see themselves in terms of dreaming and thinking we could actually do medicine. So I think we’ve come a long way.”
Adam McInnes, who is of Métis ancestry, is one of the 10 Aboriginal graduates this year from the medical doctor program.
He says he believes the increased Aboriginal enrolment in math and sciences programs is due to the ongoing process of elimination of long standing social and institutional barriers.
“The growth in Aboriginal students in these STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – now that Aboriginal people are starting to come out of the long standing institutions and policies and racism that existed in Canada for so long. Now that this generation is starting to come out from under that and starting to be able to regain their rights and position in society and their abilities that were destroyed through all of this cultural genocide that went on for so long.”
There are currently 30 Aboriginal students enrolled in the College of Medicine that are expected to graduate in the next four years.
Related stories:
- More Aboriginal students moving into Medicine
- Meet Jenna Shirley, 1st year Medicine student
- Meet Hannah St. Denis-Katz, 2nd year Medicine student
- Meet Adam McInnes, 3rd year Medicine student
- Meet Karissa Brabant, 2nd year Medicine student