Register to these two upcoming Indigenous Health courses

McGill’s Department of Family Medicine is happy to announce that students can now register to two upcoming Indigenous Health courses. Indigenous Perspectives Decolonizing Health Research (FMED 506), a one-credit course, will be offered in fall 2021 by Prof. Alex McComber, Kanien’keha:ka from Kahnawake Territory, QC. This graduate foundation course explores Indigenous-grounded health promotion in primary health care, with the goal to foster more meaningful patient and community engagement in research and practice. Inuit Health in the Canadian Context (FMED527), a one-credit course, will be offered in winter 2022 by Prof. Richard Budgell, Labrador Inuk. The course will explore the histories, perspectives and contemporary realities of Inuit health in the four regions of Inuit Nunangat (the Inuit homeland) with a particular focus on the Nunavik region of northern Quebec. 

You can register on Minerva.

FMED 506: Indigenous Perspectives Decolonizing Health Research (1 credit) – Fall 2021 by Alex McComber

This graduate foundation course explores Indigenous-grounded health promotion in primary health care, with the goal to foster more meaningful patient and community engagement in research and practice. This course will explore the nature of Indigenous Peoples' ways of understanding the world and cultural ways of knowing and doing, with focus on health and wellness. It will review the Canadian history of colonization and assimilation, and the outcomes and impacts through the lens of Indigenous Peoples. The course will review the powershift as Indigenous Peoples, scholars and communities participate, share and control the health and wellness clinical and research agenda.

Prof. Alex McComber, Kanien’keha:ka from Kahnawake Territory, Qc., an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine. He has been involved with the Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project, a long-standing CBPR project since 1994 in association with PRAM. His research interests include diabetes prevention, Indigenous health promotion, community mobilization, mentorship, personal empowerment and Indigenous research methodologies. Prof. McComber is actively involved with Indigenous focussed curriculum development as part of cultural safety education for medical residents and faculty and is co-leading the Indigenous Program at the Dept. of Family Medicine. Prof. McComber is Director of the Quebec Indigenous Mentorship Network, Director of the Kahnawake Indigenous Youth Mentorship Project, co-Direction of the Indigenous Program of the Quebec SPOR Support Unit, an active participant with the SPOR Diabetes Action Canada project as a patient partner, and he is a co-investigator with the Quebec Network Environment for Indigenous Health Research.

FMED527: Inuit Health in the Canadian Context (1 credit) – Winter 2022 by Richard Budgell

The course will explore the histories, perspectives and contemporary realities of Inuit health in the four regions of Inuit Nunangat (the Inuit homeland) with a particular focus on the Nunavik region of northern Quebec. The Inuit of Nunavik are the second-largest Inuit community in Canada, with a population of 11,000 living in 14 communities. Nunavik is part of the McGill Réseau universitaire intégré de santé et services sociaux. That gives McGill’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences a unique rationale, and opportunity, to offer, under the sponsorship of Family Medicine, a course on Inuit health in the Canadian context.

Prof. Richard Budgell has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine since 2020. He is a Labrador Inuk and lectures, writes and is involved in research on Inuit health. Prior to joining Family Medicine he was a federal government public servant in First Nations and Inuit health and other areas for more than thirty years. He has a Master of Arts degree in Indigenous Studies from Carleton University and is beginning doctoral studies in History of Medicine at McGill.