The Northern Ontario School of Medicine is set become the first stand-alone medical university in Canada. The provincial government has passed legisla.
Bernice Downey ‘09, ‘14
Faculty of Social Sciences
Downey is driven to create change and says it’s why she chose a health profession. A mother and grandmother of Ojibwe and Celtic heritage, she received a BSc in nursing from the University of Ottawa then came to McMaster after gaining experience in the nursing field to pursue her masters, PhD and post-doctoral work in medical anthropology.
A life-long advocate in the work of addressing the serious health inequalities among Indigenous populations in Canada, Downey continued at McMaster after her studies, joining the School of Nursing in 2017, cross-appointed with the Department of Psychiatry and Neuro-Behavioural Sciences. She also led the Indigenous Health Initiative with the Faculty of Health Sciences and the development of the McMaster Indigenous Research Institute.