Pewaseskwan Team
Dr. Alexandra King
Cameco Chair of Indigenous Health and Wellness, University of Saskatchewan
Dr. Alexandra King, MD, FRCPC, is a member of the Nipissing First Nation (Ontario). She is an Internal Medicine Specialist with a focus on HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C (HCV), HIV/HCV co-infections and an interest in several other areas, including heart disease. Alexandra is the inaugural Cameco Chair in Indigenous Health and Wellness at the University of Saskatchewan, endowed by the Royal University Hospital Foundation through its Royal Care Campaign. She works with Indigenous communities and relevant stakeholders to understand the health and wellness needs of First Nations and Métis peoples in Saskatchewan and the structural changes that needed for improved Indigenous health outcomes.
As well, she leads work that enhances Indigenous health education; advocates for improvements and funding; ensures sustainability of effective services and supports; and facilitates knowledge and resource mobilization to support improved Indigenous health and wellness. Alexandra brings leadership skills in culturally safe and responsive research and care, reconciliation, Two-eyed Seeing (bringing together Indigenous and Western worldviews or forms of knowledge) and ethical space—which needs to be created when peoples with disparate worldviews are poised to engage each other.
As a First Nation physician, her practice is grounded in Indigenous philosophy, with a focus on care for HIV/AIDS, HCV and related conditions, for which First Nations, Inuit, and Métis bear a disproportionate burden. She works in Saskatoon and serves more rural and remote communities through shared models of care, such as telehealth services.
As a First Nation researcher, Alexandra is a Principal Investigator on various CIHR research grants related to Indigenous people and HIV, HCV and co-infections, and land- and culture-based health and wellness research. Other research interests include Indigenous wellness and Indigenous research ethics. She is re-visioning an Indigenous version of community-based research so it is centred on Indigenous ancestral wisdom and lived experience, as well as Indigenous research philosophies and methodologies; similarly, she co-creates intervention research that is grounded in Indigenous epistemology, culture and wellness. Etuaptmumk (Two-eyed Seeing) approaches brings in the best of relevant Western science to further innovation and excellence in the research processes and outcomes.
Alexandra also teaches Indigenous health and has mentored former and current students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels at both Simon Fraser University and the University of Saskatchewan, focusing on wellness intervention research with Indigenous people in the areas of land-based healing, health determinants, mental health and addictions, blood-born and sexually transmitted infections, and justice health (prisoner health).
Alexandra King serves on many local and national initiatives, including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Strategy for Patient-oriented Research (SPOR) Patient Engagement and Ethics Working Group, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research HIV/AIDS Community-Based Research Steering Committee, and the Canadian Network on Hepatitis C (CanHepC).
https://research-groups.usask.ca/pewaseskwan/profiles/alexandra-king.php
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Most of our team lives and works on Treaty 6 territory and the Homeland of the Métis. The original peoples of these lands are the Cree, Saulteaux, Dene, Dakota, Lakota, Nakota, and Métis. Others are based in Vancouver, on the unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. We encourage everyone, wherever they are, to learn about the Indigenous people of the lands on which they live and work. We seek to become engaged allies together. In the spirit of truth and reconciliation, we respect the self-determination of First Nations, Métis and Inuit – in their cultures, languages and their pursuit of wellness.
© 2023 Pewaseskwan (the Indigenous Wellness Research Group) | Office of the Cameco Chair in Indigenous Health and Wellness, University of Saskatchewan.