Explore Medicine
Exploring medicine as an Indigenous learner
For First Nations, Inuit and Métis learners, exploring medicine can be shaped by your identity, family, community, culture, lived experiences and relationships with health care and education.
The ongoing effects of colonialism, racism and inequities within these systems may also influence how you or your family view medicine and post-secondary education. You may wonder whether you will feel welcome, whether your experiences will be respected, or whether you can pursue medicine while staying connected to the people, places and traditions that matter to you.
At SFU Stephens Family School of Medicine, those connections are valued.
You belong in medicine
Indigenous physicians bring important perspectives, lived experiences, languages, cultures and Indigenous ways of knowing to medicine and health care.
Your own connections to family, community, culture, land, ceremony and lived experience can also be strengths as you explore medicine. They can shape how you build relationships, understand health and communities, and care for others.
Pursuing medicine does not mean leaving these connections behind. Your identity, relationships and responsibilities can remain an important part of who you are throughout medical education and your future career.
Could medicine be a good fit? Explore Medicine Before You Decide
Indigenous community and learning at SFU
Support continues after learners begin the MD program. Indigenous learners have opportunities to connect with Indigenous faculty, staff, Elders, and Knowledge Keepers, while accessing culturally relevant academic, personal, financial, and wellness supports.
Indigenous health and Indigenous Ways of Knowing are woven throughout the curriculum, helping all medical learners develop the knowledge, skills, and humility needed to provide culturally safe care for Indigenous Peoples and the diverse communities they will serve.