Elder Robert Price, Terri Aldred, James Liu, Sheona Mitchell-Foster, Sarah de Leeuw
For the first time in its history, the Department of Surgery in UBC’s Faculty of Medicine hosted an entire day for 1st Year Residents to learn about Indigenous and anti-colonial ways of knowing and being leading to culturally humble and safe practice.
Less than one-week prior to Canada’s National Truth and Reconciliation Day (September 30th), 1st Year Surgery Residents were welcomed in prayer and song by Dr. Elder Roberta Price, from the Snuneymuxw and Cowichan First Nations. Elder Roberta appealed to residents to think about ways of understanding historic and current trauma faced by many First Nations, Metis, and Inuit patients. Elder Roberta also reminded residents to be kind and loving toward themselves and their colleagues in what will be a sometimes-challenging life-long journey of practicing culturally safe and culturally humble medicine and care.
As OBGYN surgeon Dr. Sheona Mitchell-Foster, who lives and works in Dakelh Territory, reminded the residents, culturally safe and culturally humble care begins by acknowledging gradients of power and privilege while accepting that we can be excellent surgeons and still cause untold harm because of our biases. These biases, as Family Physician Dr. Terri Aldred (a medical educator, health director, and member of the Tl’azt’en Nation) explained, have long and terrifyingly resilient histories in medicine and settler society at large. The need to acknowledge and actively dispel biases against Indigenous patients and colleagues was carefully detailed, with comprehensive evidence about impacts of biases that too often go unacknowledged and are misunderstood, by Dr. James Liu, an Emergency Medicine physician who has witnessed first-hand the violences of anti-Indigenous racism on hospital wards. Before turning to closing stories, songs, and prayers offered by Elder Price, when residents carefully folded and tied into being small medicine bundles to remind them of their day’s lessons, Dr. Sarah de Leeuw offered poetry and an arts project as a reminder that combating bias is equally about hard intellectual work and about heart-work, about feeling and being emotionally differently in the world.
The residents learned deeply and were moved during the day. Reflections about the day included feeling the lectures were “informative,” “valuable,” “generous,” “profound,” and “eye-opening.” One resident noted what they learned inspired them “to challenge some of the norms I’ve adopted to make sure they are in line with the type of physician I want to be for my patients.” What a marvelous lesson learned during a day devoted to ensuring healthcare, including surgery, is decolonized!
Dr. James Liu, Dr. Sarah de Leeuw, Dr. Terri Aldred and Dr. Elder Roberta Price