This past term at the University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine saw first and second year students participate in a 12-hour Aboriginal health elective course. As a part of their course, students learned about the role of culture in health care, visited the Edmonton Native Healing Centre to learn about smudging, and attended a workshop on residential schools and inter-generational trauma.

As the final activity of the course, as their gesture of reconciliation, students wrote letters to survivors of residential schools. In the letters shown above the post, students shared what they learned and how this learning experience will influence them as future doctors.

In the words of one of the students,

“This experience as shown me the importance and meaning of the famous physician Sir William Osler’s quote – ‘It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has.’ Therefore, as a future doctor I will spend time to learn about my patients and not just what is ailing them.”

A chi meegwetch goes out to Jeremy Christensen and his students for putting so much heart and spirit into their efforts in making learning about the IRS “connection” so personal.