After graduating from university, Kierra FineDay said it would be a 鈥渄ream come true鈥� to work with the people of Sweetgrass First Nation or surrounding area at some point in her career.
FineDay recently graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy. FineDay is from Sweetgrass First Nation and spent most of her childhood there. FineDay attended Connaught School in North Battleford, along with school in Prince Albert.
FineDay spent six years in university, the first two being years to complete pre-requisites, while the remaining years went toward completing the Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy.
FineDay said she鈥檚 always been interested in science. Her mother, Karen, was an x-ray technician, a pharmacy technician and is now a nurse.
While in North Battleford, FineDay said she鈥檇 be given keys to the house as a youngster, and occasionally she鈥檇 forget her keys. FineDay would then have to go to the hospital to get keys from her mother.
鈥淚 remember learning about what my mom did and seeing the pharmacy and it was always something that stuck with me,鈥� FineDay said.
鈥淭hen as I got older, my mom always said I should consider pharmacy because I was good at it and I could help a lot of people. So then I started to learn about what a pharmacist does.鈥�
When FineDay was growing up, her mother would take her grandmother to medical appointments.
鈥淲e found that when my kokum would go alone she often wouldn鈥檛 understand what the doctor was telling her, and she鈥檇 be almost too uncomfortable to really ask what the doctor meant or to repeat things,鈥� FineDay said.
鈥淏ut thankfully my mom being a registered nurse [was] able to go along with her and kind of explain to my grandmother what the doctor was telling her about what the medications were for.鈥�
FineDay said the experience got her thinking about how many elders on reserve would need someone to tell them why they鈥檙e taking medication.
鈥淕rowing up, when I would go to the reserve, you鈥檇 often hear elders and family members, and teenagers who were on prescription medication [who didn鈥檛] understand why they were taking them. They would just decide they didn鈥檛 want to anymore without talking to anybody.鈥�
FineDay said a pharmacist is one of the most accessible health professionals for people living on reserve, and when pharmacists work closely with communities, they can talk to people about medications or do things such as demonstrating how inhalers and epipens work.聽
鈥淎s a pharmacist, it isn鈥檛 all medications either,鈥� FineDay said. 鈥淲e can provide services to help prevent people from possibly needing them when they鈥檙e older,鈥� such as smoking cessation and diabetes education.
Pharmacists can also act as health care navigators, as they often come into contact with other health care professionals.
Learning about Indigenous cultures, FineDay said, is important if students are later going to work on reserves as health care professionals.
鈥淚 feel like a lot of non-Indigenous people may not understand why they can鈥檛 just walk into a community and start helping,鈥� FineDay said. 鈥淵ou have to know the people, you can鈥檛 just gather your information and leave. You have to become that community and get connected to it before people are really going to talk to you.鈥�
FineDay said she was one of the few visibly Indigenous students in the college, there weren鈥檛 many services for Indigenous students and she felt the college 鈥渄idn鈥檛 really reach out to the Aboriginal student centre or the other Aboriginal student achievement program鈥� which helps first-year Indigenous students adjust to university life.
After an uncomfortable in-class incident, FineDay said she talked to Dr. Jason Perepelkin, whose research intersects with pharmacy and business, and Dr. Perepelkin helped her get in touch with a dean.
FineDay said they started 鈥渢alking about ways we could integrate Indigenous knowledge into the curriculum and provide and reach out to Indigenous students to get them more involved in the college.
鈥淚t would be wonderful if we had more Indigenous pharmacists and dieticians in the college,鈥� she said.
After talking to the College of Pharmacy, FineDay found out it started to create a program to reach out to Indigenous students in Saskatoon and in Saskatchewan. FineDay also helped create a student group, a goal of which is to 鈥渆xpose our students and help bridge that gap between Indigenous students and non-Indigenous students especially in the college as well as on campus.鈥�
FineDay said she thinks courses such as Native Studies for medical professionals 鈥渨ho are going to be working with multiple different types of people from different backgrounds鈥� are important, especially if they are going to work in Saskatchewan.
鈥淔or me as an Indigenous health care professional I want to make sure that our kokums and mushums and our grandparents and elders and our cousins and our aunties and uncles and our mothers and fathers and children are being treated the same way everyone else is, and there is that sensitivity,鈥� FineDay said.
鈥淎ll in all I just really want them to understand the differences that we face and the importance of knowing those differences. And also not treating them differently.鈥�
