THE CALL OF THE NORTH By Greg Basky
A pediatrician who cared for Dr. Veronica McKinney when she was a child first planted the seed that she could become a doctor. He had three boys, while Dr. McKinney was one of three girls in her family. “He would say, ‘Maybe we should just do a switch. You could be a doctor’s daughter and maybe you could become a doctor.’ I think even just that little idea (can have a big impact), to keep thinking about these things and keep dreaming.” Today, some 46 years later, she is a Saskatchewaneducated physician and director of Northern Medical Services – a tripartite organization involving the provincial Ministry of Health, Health Canada, and the College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan. It is responsible for “the medical side of health” in the northern half of the province, explains Dr. McKinney, where the population is more than 85 per cent Indigenous – a percentage she notes is “higher than in the Yukon, the Northwest Territories ... even Nunavut.”
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