News
Meet the NCIME Executive Committee and Executive Director
2021-04-15
The National Consortium on Indigenous Medical Education (NCIME) is a partnership between the Indigenous Physicians Association of Canada, the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada, the College of Family Physicians of Canada, the Medical Council of Canada and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and was formed to implement Indigenous-led work streams that will reform Indigenous medical education and contribute to the delivery of culturally safe care.
Ensuring Indigenous Peoples access to care is high quality, culturally safe and free of racism begins with Indigenous-led systemic change in how medical professionals are instructed and evaluated. The NCIME will provide leadership and support to partners as they fulfil their collective responsibilities to respond to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the TRC’s Calls to Action, and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Calls for Justice.
The NCIME was developed by Indigenous physicians working with health care organizations who recognized the need for collaboration to advance Indigenous medical education across the country. We are pleased to share more about these key leaders, who comprise the NCIME Executive Committee:
Leslie Spillet, Knowledge Keeper
![Leslie Spillet](/getmedia/3c1e966c-d9f3-4efe-a3ec-599470d626c2/leslie-spillet.jpg?width=300&height=224)
Mukwa Doodum – Bear Clan
Cree/Metis
She/her
Sundancer – Gathering of the Sacred Pipes – Pipestone MN, Sprucewoods
Knowledge Keeper – Ongomiizwin Indigenous Institute of Health & Healing, Rady Centre of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba
It’s an honour to support the National Consortium for Indigenous Medical Education as it works to fulfill its vision and mandate. I have taught my daughters that the most important role in our community is to serve the people (relatives) but also to remember to take care of their own spirit through ceremony and teachings of the pipe. I work on integrating these teachings into my own life knowing that it’s seldom what you say but what you do that matters.
My personal story is similar to that of many of our people and it has been through relationships formed over the years with community members sharing collective experiences through countless community activities that I have reclaimed identity, culture, history, space, family (kinship), and knowledge. I am fortunate to occupy positions (space) and to be in relationship with relatives that have been most impacted by the colonial violence including Indigenous women and 2Spirit folks, women living with HIV/AIDS, sex workers, sexually exploited youth and trafficked women, criminalized youth and families of MMIWG2S. In these relationships, I have worked from the fundamental principle that it is the systems that need to change – and not the people who are surviving them. It has helped me to be accepting, non-judgmental, trauma informed and able to challenge colonial violence – white supremacy, racism, patriarchy, heterosexism and transphobia that are embedded in colonial institutions, legal frameworks, language, law and policy.
For the past 2 years I’ve have worked at Ongomiizwin Indigenous Institute of Health and Healing in the role of knowledge keeper (helper). Ongomiizwin is an Institute within the University of Manitoba’s Rady Centre of Health Sciences. In this role, I share cultural knowledge and ceremony, support Indigenous students who are enrolled in the 5 health sciences, facilitate Indigenous curriculum to students, participate in policy development (Rady Centre’s Disrupting All forms of Racism), review and advise on curriculum (Nursing and Medicine) and provide individual counselling to students seeking support. Throughout, I challenge colonial paradigms, pedagogies, structures and narratives that are harmful and hurtful and that diminish our collective spirit and wellbeing.
I continue to be engaged in community sitting on the boards of the Manitoba Harm Reduction Network, University of Winnipeg and University of Manitoba Indigenous Advisory Circles and consult with Indigenous and community based NPO’s on decolonization and anti racism.
Dr. Marcia Anderson, Chair
![Dr. Marcia Anderson](/getmedia/cae6fb57-d54f-4690-a7ad-c114e922a556/Marcia-Anderson.jpg?width=199&height=300)
Dr. Evan Adams
![Dr. Evan Adams](/getmedia/2b439f50-601b-49d3-8d33-bd7162702957/Evan-Adams.jpg?width=200&height=300)
Dr. Adams completed his Medical Doctorate from the University of Calgary, & a residency in the Aboriginal Family Practice program in Vancouver. Dr. Adams has a Masters of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. He was the Deputy Provincial Health Officer for BC from 2012 to 2014, then served as the Chief Medical Officer of the First Nations Health Authority (2014-2020), and is now on exchange with First Nations & Inuit Health Branch, Indigenous Services Canada, as the Deputy Chief Medical Officer of Public Health.
Dr. Sarah Funnell
![Dr. Sarah Funnell](/CFPC/media/Images/News/Sarah-Funnell.jpg)
After completing medical school at the University of Ottawa (U of O), Dr. Funnell pursued her dual interests in family medicine and epidemiology through the five-year Public Health and Preventive Medicine Residency Program at U of O. She received her Certification in the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CCFP) in 2015. Then obtained Royal College Fellowship in Public Health and Preventive Medicine in 2018.
Her background is Algonquin and Tuscarora and grew up among the Mississaugas of Alderville First Nation. Sarah is on the Board of Directors of both the Indigenous Physicians Association of Canada and the Board of Directors of the College of Family Physicians of Canada. Sarah is co-Chair of the Indigenous Health Committee at the CFPC and also sits on the Indigenous Health Advisory Committee at the Royal College. She is currently working with both colleges to improve Indigenous Health Curriculum in all residency programs. She is lives in Ottawa with her husband and 3 daughters. In her spare time she speaks to her plants.
Dr. Darlene Kitty
![Dr. Darlene Kitty](/getmedia/83af8060-9c7b-4500-afac-a75548a77eaa/Darlene-Kitty.jpg?width=300&height=200)
As a former President and Board member of the Indigenous Physicians Association of Canada, Dr. Kitty collaborates with their partners to advance Indigenous health and contribute to Indigenous-relevant advocacy initiatives, research and publications. These important stakeholders include the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada, College of Family Physicians of Canada Indigenous Health Committee, the Royal College Indigenous Health Committee and the National Indigenous Health Science Circle. She carries forward these collaborations and experiences as a member of the Executive Committee of the National Consortium on Indigenous Medical Education and AFMC Indigenous Health Network.
Dr. Kitty greatly values her clinical, academic and administrative work that are important avenues of care, teaching, advocacy to address and improve Indigenous health and social issues, including anti-racism and cultural safety, in the spirit of reconciliation.
Dr. Lisa Richardson
![Dr. Lisa Richardson](/getmedia/b3a47bd5-12a8-48f1-a0f3-a0c8002d04b0/Lisa-Richardson.jpg?width=300&height=163)
Dr. Nel Wieman
![Dr. Nel Wieman](/CFPC/media/Images/News/Nel-Wieman.jpg)
Dr. Wieman completed her medical degree and psychiatry specialty training at McMaster University. Canada's first female Indigenous psychiatrist, Dr. Wieman has more than 20 years' clinical experience, working with Indigenous people in both rural/reserve and urban settings. Her previous activities include co-directing an Indigenous health research program in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto and the National Network for Indigenous Mental Health Research, being Deputy Chair of Health Canada's Research Ethics Board, and serving on CIHR's Governing Council. She has also worked and taught in many academic settings, has chaired national advisory groups within First Nations Inuit Health Branch - Health Canada, and has served as a Director on many boards, including the Indspire Foundation, Pacific Blue Cross and the National Consortium on Indigenous Medical Education.
Meet the NCIME Executive Director
The NCIME Executive Director will work closely with the oversight committees and will lead the project secretariat housed at the AFMC. We are pleased to announce the NCIME Executive Director.
Danielle N. Soucy
![Danielle N. Soucy](/getmedia/ef8fe032-0e46-40de-8364-d3947e239a2c/Danielle-Soucy.jpg?width=300&height=240)
During her tenue at NAHO she was the lead for IPAC/AFMC and IPAC/RCPSC Indigenous health working groups with a proven track record and solid reputation as someone who is passionate, committed, and of the highest integrity in her work ethic and relationships. This accounts for her success in partnership development, student best practices, and working with government and regulatory bodies and networks in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
As a Settler ally her goal is to transform our institutions of higher learning towards safe, equitable, diverse and inclusive supportive spaces of success for Indigenous persons within medical education as led and determined by them while honouring the many community teachers, Elders and Knowledge Keepers who have helped frame her mindset. As a scholar her research interests focuses on EDI, Anti-Indigenous racism, competency in health professions education; faculty development within health sciences education; Critical Race Theory and equity in recruitment, admissions and retention within health professions; Indigenous research methodologies and ethics. Her latest article in the Aboriginal Policy Studies journal “Where are you from? Reframing Facilitated Admissions Policies in the Faculty of Health Sciences” was co-authored by Dr. Nel Wieman, President of IPAC. She is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Health, Aging and Society, Faculty of Social Sciences, at McMaster University, Hamilton, ON. Her research focuses on non-Indigenous medical educators’ competency to teach Indigenous health in undergraduate medicine.
For Danielle, the role of the Executive Director represents the ability to contribute to systemic institutional change responsive to the goals of the NCIME, its governing council and partners. She is excited for the opportunity to work with the elite Indigenous leaders in medical education, mentoring of future leaders and the academic space in which Indigenous medical students, residents and faculty thrive.