TORONTO -- It is another early Saturday morning, and as I turn my back to make sure my car door is locked, I am again reminded that some people used the streets for a home last night, as they do every night, summer and winter. This is probably not something that I would have thought about one year ago, but that was before I began working with the homeless people of Toronto who seek out Anishnawbe Health Toronto for support and care.
It is September 20, 1997, almost one year after the official opening of an external clinic by the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College (CMCC) at Anishnawbe Health Toronto (AHT). AHT is a culture-based health centre committed to the full recovery of Anishnawbe people through traditional native Canadian ways. In 1987, it was incorporated as a nonprofit, charitable organization seeking to establish itself as a community health centre. After five years, AHT made a directional change, choosing a new role as a culture-based health centre and placing traditional healers, elders and traditional healing ways at its core. Today, the centre utilizes 16 traditional healers and elders, social workers, medical doctors, nurses, traditional herbalists and countless other social, medical and community programmes, including four chiropractic interns and myself, as their supervisory clinician.
This is an extremely special health centre that provides our interns at CMCC with a unique learning experience. At AHT, interns gain valuable clinical knowledge working with a diverse population of patients in a multidisciplinary environment. Equally important, they often learn as much about life and people as their patients do about health and chiropractic. Many of the patients live on the street and have no family or friends to care for them. They rely on the support offered by AHT and often turn to their intern. Working with this reality has provided all involved with a tremendous perspective on life. Many of the people we see at AHT would have extremely limited access to chiropractic care if our clinic was not there.
Not only do our interns learn a great deal from the people they see, they also have the opportunity to learn from other health care professionals within a unique multidisciplinary clinic. Traditional healers, elders and medical staff are extremely open to case conferencing with interns. Ironically, the medical staff at AHT are learning as much about chiropractic through the questions asked by our students as the students themselves are learning about medicine. On more than one occasion, we have gathered to discuss a question while the patient is right there, and this has enhanced the sense of teamwork and cooperation that exists among all of the health care professionals at the centre.
AHT offers cultural, ceremonial and traditional teachings to the interns as well. Once a month, AHT organizes a programme for the students and we have participated in several events, such as an ancient shaking tent and full moon ceremonies, a medicine walk at an elder's land on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario, and teachings by the elders themselves.
In return, the chiropractic care offered by CMCC at the health centre has been very well received. We have been extremely busy. To commemorate our commitment and to mark one year of service, CMCC was invited to participate in the centre's open house ceremonies, which included traditional singers and demonstrations of each of the various programmes.
The interns should receive much of the praise for the success of our participation in AHT. Their altruistic commitment to an emotionally taxing six months is commendable. Besides their classes and exams at CMCC, they give a tremendous amount of personal energy to their patients. Because of the social history of many of our patients, the visit often provides them with support: a person to talk to; someone who listens without judgment. Working with this population can be a rather abrupt awakening. It sheds light on the reality that exists for many people who are socio-economically less fortunate than most of us reading this article.
The true irony however may be that it is the students who are gaining from the community in terms of what they are learning, more so than the community gaining from our services.
Jarrod Goldin, DC
Supervisory Chiropractor
Anishnawbe Health Toronto
Canada
