“That baby already knows everything it needs to know,” Simon dzܱé’s maternal grandmother, a respected midwife, would say each time a mother headed home with her newborn.
Generations of such traditional knowledge passed down to dzܱé through family and community have culminated in a career full of significant contributions to Indigenous health and wellness.
And now this spring, the University of Ottawa will bestow upon him an honorary doctorate in recognition of his impact.
Algonquin artist and Elder Simon dzܱé is a member of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation in Maniwaki, Quebec, and currently lives on Algonquin territory in Ottawa, Ontario.
It’s complicated, he smiles, when asked about the focus of his life’s work. He settles on a simple answer, stating that he has dedicated his career to working on advancing Indigenous knowledge, education, governance, and healing through community work.
“But at the heart of it, I’m really an artist,” he continues. “Indigenous people tend to see the world as interconnected, and so I’ve used art to strengthen my Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing, across multiple fields.”
“Indigenous people tend to see the world as interconnected, and so I’ve used art to strengthen my Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing, across multiple fields.”
Elder Simon dzܱé
— Recipient of an Honorary doctorate from the University of Ottawa
If you only see one side, you’re not considering the other
Bringing together wholistic Indigenous ways and institutional academia, including in the field of medicine, is critical in achieving beneficial outcomes for problem-solving and decision-making.
It requires two-eyed seeing, a guiding principle for many Indigenous communities. Through one eye, says dzܱé, you’re looking at the world through an Indigenous knowledge perspective; through the other, you’re looking at the world through the perspective of western science.
Whether in his research, his medical education advocacy, or his art, dzܱé&Բ;has sought roles where he can not only see both sides, but connect them to ensure safe and accessible health care for Indigenous communities.
Embedded in the medical community
dzܱé pulls everything he has learned from his family into the work he does today.
“On my father’s side, both my grandmother and my grandfather were medicine people. My grandfather was a well-known herbalist,” he says, “I’m just one member of a community of Anishinaabe Algonquins, but I am the product of my ancestors.”
Early on in his career, he embedded himself in the medical education community, boosting the power of his advocacy work.
His active involvement in various health-related boards and committees has significantly contributed to Indigenous health and wellness. Membership in key groups and leadership roles have been pivotal in shaping health policies and educational frameworks aiming to improve the health outcomes of Indigenous populations in Canada.
First Nations education is still going through a major transformation, triggered by a recommendation in a by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in 1996 that called for more Indigenous health practitioners.
At the time, dzܱé&Բ;was working for Health Canada, which started a program called Aboriginal Health Human Resources that provided millions of dollars to medical and health schools over several years in support of Indigenous education.
This included a contribution agreement, led by dzܱé&Բ;in 2004–2005 as director of Primary Health Care at the First Nation and Inuit Health Branch, with the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine and then-dean Peter Walker. It would be an early contribution to what would later become the Faculty’s Indigenous undergraduate medical education program.
dzܱé currently brings his expertise to the 91ƷϳԹ Graduate School of Public and International Affairs as a senior fellow; and for many years, he has sat on the Admissions Committee of the Faculty of Medicine.
Meanwhile, the family connections in medicine continue: dzܱé’s daughter, Dr. Sarah Funnell, completed her MD at the University of Ottawa, going on to become a faculty member and inaugural director of the