About Us
The Indigenous Medical Students' Association of Canada is a brand-new organization founded in 2021. We were started by a few students from across Canada and are looking forward to forming our first Leadership Circle in August 2021.
Our Vision
Our vision is to create a national association that will act as a safe space for Indigenous medical students across Canada to build community, work together on advocacy, and increase Indigenous representation.
How Did We Choose Our Name?
(and why it says "so-called" on our home page)
We wanted to choose a name that best represented Indigenous medical students in Canada. However, we also recognize that we were here before this land was called Canada and that not every Indigenous person in this country identifies as Canadian. Despite this, we needed to find a way to define our geographical reach specifically to the medical students of this country. For this reason, we decided that the best compromise was to acknowledge the term "Canada" with satire.
Leadership Structure
When speaking to Elders about forming this association, we were told that Indigenous peoples traditionally had non-hierarchical leadership structures. The Elders told us that they thought it would be really special for us to try to incorporate a "circular" leadership structure into our organization. It is for this reason that we chose to form our Leadership Circle; a leadership structure where everyone supports each other from an equal footing.