Tag Archives: Aboriginal Nurses Association

M2 P5: BC Pre-health program for Indigenous student success

A large part of the reason for my research question is not only that more competent health professionals are required who understand Indigenous culture and how this contributes to well being in Indigenous communities, but also that there is a shortage of skilled health professionals on reserves and remote or rural Indigenous communities.
I’ve been involved in pre-health programs at BCIT – the polytechnic institute partnered with Burnaby School Board to provide a specialized program for grade 12 students interested in health sciences careers to attend a year long course at BCIT to not only gain exposure to education in their career interests, but also to ease the transition from high school into a professional program at the college level. A program like this, geared specifically for Indigenous students, would help remove barriers for Indigenous students and promote success. This article discusses just such a program as a partnership between the Secwepemc Cultural and Education Society, the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council and the University College of the Cariboo, who developed an Aboriginal pre-health program.

This article is from 2001, so part of my research for the final project will be to discover whether this program is still running and any other details I can find on it.

Holmes, V. (2001). Southcentral British Columbia Secwepemc cultural education society aboriginal pre-health education program. The Aboriginal Nurse, 16(1), 22. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/southcentral-birtish-columbia-secwepemc-cultural/docview/234988180/se-2?accountid=14656

M1 P4: Indigenous nursing students

I think it is important to have indigenous perspectives in curriculum development, so these can be incorporated early on in program development and support indigenous student success.

I was not aware that there is a First Nations University in Sask. that offers a wide range of programs for indigenous students. This would be a good place for me to look at for admission requirements and how there might be differences in program requirements and supports to help indigenous students access these programs.

https://www.fnuniv.ca/

These are some articles I was able to find to start examining this research topic of increasing access & removing barriers to indigenous students in nursing programs.

Janki Shankar, Eugene Ip & Nene Ernest Khalema (2020) Addressing academic aspirations, challenges, and barriers of indigenous and immigrant students in a postsecondary education setting, Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 29:5, 396- 420, DOI: 10.1080/15313204.2017.1409675

Curran, V. , Solberg, S. , LeFort, S. , Fleet, L. & Hollett, A. (2008). A Responsive Evaluation of an Aboriginal Nursing Education Access Program. Nurse Educator, 33(1), 13-17. doi:10.1097/01.NNE.0000299496.23119.68.

Anonson, J. M., Desjarlais, J., Nixon, J., Whiteman, L., & Bird, A. (2008). Strategies to support recruitment and retention of first nations youth in baccalaureate nursing programs in Saskatchewan, Canada. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 19(3), 274- 283. https://doi.org/10.1177/1043659608317095

Martin, D., & Seguire, M. (2013). Creating a path for indigenous student success in baccalaureate nursing education. The Journal of Nursing Education, 52(4), 205-209. https://doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20130314-01

P1 M1: Removing Barriers to Health Care Education for Indigenous Students

Research Interest: Topic – How can we remove barriers to health care education for Indigenous students?

Indigenous Knowledge to Close Gaps in Indigenous Health | Marcia Anderson-DeCoteau | TEDxUManitoba

This has been an interest of mine for many years now. I chose this video, not because it inspired me to explore this topic further (I’ve been pondering this question for years), but because she tells the story much better than I ever could on why it is so important to encourage more Indigenous students into health care fields, particularly those living on reserve.

The stories she tells of Indigenous people’s encounters with the health care system, and stories I’ve heard personally from others, are the stories that have inspired me to look further into what we can do about the negative encounters of Indigenous people with the health care system. I’ve heard personally from people that have experienced directly the type of racism she speaks of in hospitals – women denied analgesics because “they’re probably addicted” anyway, I heard a story from a mother who was in active labour and was told to ‘stop drinking for your baby” (this woman does not drink, and is a lawyer – they still encouraged her to stop drinking, but were less demanding about it). I’ve heard from my mother, who was a social worker with Victims Services in Dawson Creek, stories about clients she worked with having horrific experiences with the RCMP and emergency personnel in the hospital there…These stories make me angry and ashamed for my profession, and wanting to better the health care system for everyone, not just the colonizers.

Her words, when describing the maternal-child health program, sound very much like words I would use to describe my own teaching philosophy. This video is very inspiring and helps me to know there are things we can do about the issues that Indigenous people have with the health care system – change from within the system.