Dr. Haley Shade is a second-year General Surgery Resident and medical school graduate from the University of Calgary. She is in her first year as a student in the Master of Global Surgical Care program. Read on to find out more about Haley, her experiences, what led her to the MGSC, and more!
What are some of your hobbies & interests (cooking, sports, travelling, etc?) What do you love to do in your spare time?
Snowboarding, playing hockey, cheering for the Calgary Flames and the Detroit Lions!
Can you please tell us about your career or professional background?
I am a second year General Surgery resident at the University of Calgary. I completed medical school at the University of Calgary. Prior to medical school, I completed my bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences. Since I was 15, I have wanted to become a doctor. It wasn’t until medical school that I fell in love with surgery. I am the first person from my First Nations community to train as a surgeon.
What has inspired you to study and work in the field of global surgery? What has been most meaningful to you in your surgical education journey so far? Please share any experiences you have had in global surgery work.
I was very motivated to learn from the different lecturers and experts in this field on how to operate in a low resource setting. Global surgery is unique in that it allows for a shared partnership to address surgical inequity and to collaborate with different communities. Prior to starting my masters in global surgery, I had no experience in this field before! After my residency, I would like to pursue a fellowship in pediatric general surgery. I recently completed my pediatric general surgery rotation this past summer. Working with children and their families has been the most special part of my residency training to date.
What attracted you to the MGSC? How do you plan to use the skills and knowledge gained from this program in your career in the future?
I was particularly drawn to the Low Resource Settings Stream that allows us to focus on the unique issues affecting surgical care in rural and remote low-resource settings in Canada. As an Indigenous person, I would like to one day provide surgical care for low-resource settings and for Northern Canadian Indigenous Communities. Access to timely and equitable surgical care is a continued problem many of our rural and Northern Indigenous communities face, despite living in a high-income country. I wanted to complete graduate training that would help me to tackle some of the problems we are currently facing here in Canada.
Would you like to share how your Indigenous identity and community have influenced your approach to learning or patient care?
I was very fortunate to grow up in my community and was raised to be proud of where I come from as a Blackfoot person. Although there are still many challenges ahead in ensuring our people receive equitable treatment in healthcare, this was one of my core reasons for pursuing medicine. Prior to medical school, I volunteered at our detox centre as a peer support mentor and completed my family medicine rotation in my home community, the Blood Tribe First Nations. It was a rewarding experience to be able to provide care for my own community and to learn from the people who I grew up with. Those experiences profoundly shaped the way that I view my position and helped shape me into the doctor I am today. My people and my community are my “why”. They are the reason I am interested in pursuing global surgery, to learn how I can address surgical inequity in low resource settings, specifically for First Nations people in Canada.
What advice would you give to other Indigenous students who are considering a career in global surgery?
I was really inspired to pursue a master’s degree in this field by one of the few Canadian Indigenous surgeons, Dr. Nadine Caron. Dr. Caron is an instructor in our program. We need more Indigenous representation within this field. I wanted to learn how I can use the knowledge and skills commonly used in global surgery to tackle the surgical inequity we often see in Indigenous communities in Canada. I wanted to learn how to tackle issues commonly identified in low resource settings and felt that UBC offered a program that would help me achieve this. We are lucky in our program to have a wide array of talented surgeons and lecturers, each with their own unique expertise and perspectives.
Much of the teachings within my community focus on seven generations, how can we make this a better place for the next seven generations? I can appreciate a similar sentiment from the global surgery community. Although I am relatively new to this field, it has been eye opening and has challenged me in ways that I haven’t been before. In our Blackfoot language, we say Iikaakimaat, which means to try hard. It is up to us to create space for our people within these fields in order to help our communities and to Iikaakimaat. What can we do to help our communities who have given so much for us to succeed and be here today? I would strongly encourage Indigenous students to find strong mentors in their field of choice. I wouldn’t be where I am today without the people who have supported me along the way.
Is there any work/document/article that you are currently working on that you’d like to promote? Our community would love to find out what our students are currently working on. How can our community learn more about you? (Website, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.)
I am general surgery resident at the University of Calgary. This our website where our research is often featured https://uofcgeneralsurgery.ca/. I am currently completing a research project with our colorectal surgeons here in Calgary to determine the colorectal cancer screening rate of First Nations people in Alberta and the barriers encountered when seeking colorectal cancer screening.