A doctor's hands typing on a keyboard

New Indigenous cultural safety training for healthcare providers

December 14, 2022

A new online course called To Know Better is to Do Better: Translating Indigenous Knowledge to Health Practice for Health-Care Providers in Nova Scotia is now available.

The six-module online course will teach health-care providers how to create culturally safe environments for Indigenous patients in their clinics and offices.

The course was launched by Tajikeimik, a Mi’kmaw health and wellness authority, along with the IWK Health Centre and Dalhousie University. The project is inviting 375 health clinicians from the IWK, Nova Scotia Health and Mi’kmaw community health settings in Nova Scotia to participate in the course with a plan to expand in the future.

The modules focus on the concept of Two-Eyed Seeing or Etuaptmumk, a worldview that combines two perspectives at once — the lens of Indigenous knowledge and Western science.

The course will educate people on the Mi’kmaw language, culture, geography, and trauma-informed clinical practice while examining how racism and colonialism have harmed Indigenous people seeking care.

The College acknowledges that we are in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq people. This territory is covered by the Treaties of Peace and Friendship. We also acknowledge that people of African descent have been in Nova Scotia for over 400 years, and we honour and offer gratitude to those ancestors.