Identifying Potential Areas of Change to Medical School Curricula to Better Support Canadian Rural Healthcare Physicians in Serving Indigenous Populations

Indigenous peoples in Canada experience a comparatively poorer level of health relative to other Canadians. Factors contributing to this include limited healthcare accessibility and other disparities including anti-Indigenous racism. This project is a thematic analysis which draws on the experiences of rural physicians currently working with Indigenous populations to suggest changes that can be made to medical school curricula. The authors collected response data from physicians via convenience sampling at a 3-day rural and remote medicine conference, inquiring into the participants’ training, practice, and experiences with providing healthcare to Indigenous patients. The study included data from 29 participants across Canada who have practiced medicine in a rural setting (population <50 000) for at least 5 years. The emerging themes were grouped into four categories: systemic barriers to healthcare access (physical distance, impact of colonialism), physicians’ personal barriers in providing care (lack of cultural awareness, time and resources), physician support (Indigenous community involvement, pay model, access to training), and suggestions for how to support future rural physicians (curricular changes, Indigenous representation, exposure to Indigenous peoples and communities during training). Based on these results, we propose to curriculum developers the importance of increasing exposure to rural and Indigenous communities during medical school and increasing the supports available to medical school students interested in rural and Indigenous healthcare.