Geneviève L. Picard
Nearly one million Canadians are of Amerindian, Métis or Inuit ancestry, but there are only about 160 Aboriginal doctors in Canada. That is very few, far too few. “There should be 2,600 of them!” insists Dr. Stanley Vollant, who heads up the new Aboriginal Medical Education Program at the University of Ottawa.
Himself an Innu from the Papinachois tribe, born on the Pessamite reserve (Betsiamites) in northern Quebec, near Baie-Comeau, Stanley Vollant is familiar with the obstacles that arise for young Aboriginals interested in medicine. “When you have lived on a reserve, you don’t arrive at the starting line on an equal footing,” he says.
He believes several factors account for this situation: the poor quality of science courses on reserves; the fact that many of the youth have experienced violence, poverty and addiction; and the fact that Aboriginals do not place a high value on competitiveness. “For us, it’s important to get an education,” explains Dr. Vollant, “but not really to be better than the next person.”
If he is a doctor today, it is because, in the early 1980s, Université de Montréal created a number of discretionary spaces in its Faculty of Medicine for young Aboriginals. The young Stanley Vollant’s scholastic abilities and drive made up for the three or four points by which his academic average fell short. He went on to prove himself worthy of this confidence by becoming a well-known surgeon, a valued educator, and president of the Quebec Medical Association from 2001 to 2003.
The wind is changing
In 2005, the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada urged its members to promote the training of Aboriginal doctors. The University of Ottawa quickly responded by creating eight new spaces for them, and invited Dr. Vollant to head up the program. He could not resist the call. “The challenge of being able to provide medical training to young Aboriginals was a return to crucial, primordial and basic roots,” he explains.
The aim of the new program is to even out the playing field by giving Aboriginal students preferential access. The minimum requirements are the same as those of the medical program for francophone students, set up about a decade ago.
The Faculty of Medicine hopes to train about 100 new doctors of Aboriginal origin by 2020. Dr. Vollant is proud of the 13 candidates who have been admitted since 2005, “We still won’t have reached the desired goal, but we’ll be well on our way,” Dr. Vollant believes.
Dr. Vollant hopes that through the program, non-Aboriginals will become more sensitized to Aboriginal culture in Canada. He would like medical students to take courses in the realities, cultures, health and cross-cultural approaches of Aboriginal peoples.
“Specialists see you as ‘a liver’ or ‘a breast.’ For Aboriginal healers, it is important to consider the individual as a whole.” They see health as a circle made up of four components: the mind, the body, the physical environment, and the social environment. The breakdown of any one of these leads to illness. In Dr. Vollant’s view, this holistic approach to health could serve as inspiration for more than one future physician.
