Ahead of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30, VPSA’s Engaging Physicians in Indigenous Cultural (EPIC) Safety Task Group is highlighting one iCON–VCH Indigenous Health Round each week. These free, physician-focused webinars support health-care professionals in ongoing learning about how to provide culturally safe care for Indigenous patients, families, and communities. Indigenous Health Rounds are accredited by UBC Continuing Professional Development (UBC CPD), allowing participating physicians to earn CPD credits.
Uplifting Cultural Safety
In an Indigenous Health Round held on October 17, 2023, Cathy Almost, Director of Indigenous Cultural Safety at Vancouver Coastal Health, and Kwelkwáyel7simia Wendy Nahanee, Indigenous Strategic Lead for Indigenous Cultural Safety at Vancouver Coastal Health and a Host Nation Matriarch from the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation, led a session on what cultural safety looks like in day-to-day clinical practice.
Cathy, who is Cree, Gwich’in, and Scottish, has spent over 30 years working alongside Indigenous patient voices across the province to develop the Principles of Cultural Safety, work recognized with the 2022 IAP2 Indigenous Engagement Award. Together with Kwelkwáyel7simia, she walked participants through how health-care providers can build genuine trust with Indigenous patients and avoid common missteps that could erode it.
The speakers encourage health-care providers to:
- Move from performative gestures toward sustained, relationship-based cultural safety practice.
- Recognize how past experiences with the health-care system can shape a patient’s guardedness or reluctance to engage.
- Create space for Indigenous patients to bring family, culture, and community support into their care.
- Reflect honestly on personal and institutional biases and blind spots, including how their own behaviours may affect whether patients feel safe and respected.
The session reinforced that cultural safety isn’t a one-time training but an ongoing practice one builds through humility, consistency, and a willingness to keep learning directly from Indigenous patients and communities.
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