UNBC Students Learn Aboriginal Perspectives on Health at Johns Hopkins University

December 11, 2012

This year, three students at the University of Northern British Columbia spent a week studying at one of the world’s most prestigious schools of public health at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). UNBC Masters in Health Sciences students Joanna Paterson and Stephen Bennett, and Natalja Tchajkova, a third-year student in the Northern Medical Program (NMP) at UNBC, spent a week in August learning about indigenous perspective to medical research at the Center for American Indian Health at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland.

The opportunity was brought about largely from the efforts of Nadine Caron, an Academic Physician both with the Northern Medical Program at UNBC, which is part of UBC’s Faculty of Medicine, and with Johns Hopkins. “UBC and JHU recently signed a memorandum of understanding on Aboriginal health and I saw a great opportunity to involve both NMP and Health Sciences students at UNBC in order to serve the needs of the North,” says Dr. Caron.

A call for applications was put out asking students why they wanted to learn about health from an indigenous perspective. Funding was provided from the BC Cancer Agency, the UNBC Provost’s Office, and the Northern Medical Program.

“These students were selected because they are all interested in northern and Aboriginal health, and they have promising medical careers in the North ahead of them; careers that are important to the future of northern BC,” says Dr. Caron. “The connections they made on this internship will facilitate the vital relationships that will help them in their careers, not to mention the big step they’ve taken towards learning some of the many perspectives there are to medicine and health services.”

Bennett, Paterson, and Tchajkova say they all intend to practice medicine in the North after graduating from the NMP. “My time at Johns Hopkins strengthened my desire to attend medical school,” says Bennett, who is from Quesnel BC, and has received Doug Floyd Memorial and Kenneth Wong scholarships, and was a UNBC President’s Scholar. “This additional training will help me to work both as a physician and a researcher. UNBC has provided me with a wealth of knowledge about western perspectives to health, and JHU has helped me with the indigenous perspective. It’s the kind of comprehensive education I need to serve the population of northern BC as a pediatric oncologist, which is my career ambition.”