Community Advocate and Inspiration

Dr. Sheri McKinstry’s Extraordinary Career Serving the Oral Health Needs of Indigenous Communities

Dr. Sheri McKinstry—a dentist, an academic, an Anishinaabekwe from Treaty 1 territory, and a proud member of Sagkeeng First Nation in Manitoba—was not a typical student. Rather, she turned out to be an exceptional one.

Though she was a strong student when she was a teenager, Dr. McKinstry dropped out of school to help care for her younger siblings. It was only after she met her husband and was expecting her first child that she began taking courses to complete her high school diploma. “I was very motivated because my husband and I wanted to provide opportunities for our children, opportunities that I didn’t have growing up,” Dr. McKinstry says.

When it was time to contemplate her career possibilities, Dr. McKinstry and her husband sat down and talked about what she most wanted to do. “I had to decide, where am I going and what am I going to do?” she says.

Dental School in Manitoba

At the University of Manitoba (U of M), Dr. McKinstry qualified for a program that provided support for Indigenous students. “This program was my lifesaver,” Dr. McKinstry says. “It helped me navigate a system, the university, that was completely novel to me.”

When her daughter was in first grade, Dr. McKinstry was in her first year of dental school. “My daughter would tell me that I was in grade one of dentistry, so we were in the same situation,” she says. While in dental school, Dr. McKinstry focused on getting her work done while raising four children. “I felt very privileged to be there,” she says. “I was in disbelief sometimes that I was at university, especially in dentistry, because of my childhood and background.” She didn’t have time to socialize much, bu she says her classmates were supportive.

Dr. Charles Lekic, who was the program director of pediatric dentistry at the U of M, became Dr. McKinstry’s mentor. “He was our class advisor and took care of all of us during those four years,” she says. “I think he tried to influence all of us to become pediatric dentists.” She planned to be a general dentist and insisted that she didn’t want to specialize. This decision was due, in part, to the time commitment it takes, but also because she perceived specialization as something that was out of her reach.

Practising in First Nations Communities

After she earned her dental degree, Dr. McKinstry began practising dentistry with the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB) serving rural First Nations communities. Fortunately, Dr. McKinstry had family connections with some of the communities.

“I initially provided dental services to Koostatak/Fisher River, Kinonjeoshtegon/Jackhead and HollowWater in 2005,” Dr. McKinstry says. “My biological paternal grandmother originated from Fisher River, and my grandfather’s family was originally registered with Peguis. While some of my family is still registered with Peguis, my dad, myself and my siblings are registered with Sagkeeng First Nation. My mom’s maternal and paternal side of the family is from the Bad Throat/Manigotagan area. Sadly, we don’t know much of the origins of her biological paternal family,” she says. “In addition to the original three communities, I picked up other First Nations communities over the years, but Fisher River and Jackhead are where I spent much of my dental career. They are amazing communities with beautiful people.”

For the first six years of her career, Dr. McKinstry would drive to and from the communities where she provided dental services each day so she could be home with her family in the evenings. Then for the last six years, she spent the week in the communities where she worked and came home on the weekends. She heard stories about people’s difficult experiences with the medical system and the oral health system. “Which, of course, I wanted to fix,” she says, “in whatever way I could.”

The Intersection of Settler and Indigenous Cultures

After working in the communities for seven years, in 2012, Dr. McKinstry began a part-time BA degree with a major in native studies and minor in sociology. “I was exploring what it meant to me to be First Nation,” she says. “I wanted to know why my life as a child was so different from the lives of other Canadians.” As well, she had questions about the impact that she was having in the communities where she worked. When she started out, she wanted to contribute to positive oral health changes in the lives of her patients, but, over the course of several years, she felt that she was failing the communities.

“I wondered why I couldn’t make a difference in the community. I was still referring children off-site for surgery at hospitals,” Dr. McKinstry says. When she had the opportunity to complete a masters in public health specifically focused on Indigenous Peoples Health at the University of Victoria, (UVic) she took it, and put the BA on hold. “It was less part of my educational journey than my personal one,” she says. “Indigenous history in Canada was one of the biggest lessons that I needed to learn. My father was involved in a residential school, but he never talked about it. I feel that his and his siblings’ experience in the residential school system had a huge impact on my childhood, and contributed to the lack of opportunities that my family had, especially after my grandfather served in the army during WWII.”

During her time at UVic, where she did research on cultural safety and reconciliation in dentistry, Dr. McKinstry began to feel more strongly that the most effective way for her to help Indigenous communities was to work with children. “I’d always loved interacting with children anyway, it was where my heart always was,” she says. When Dr. Lekic suggested that she attend the masters in pediatric dentistry at the U of M, as he did every year, Dr. McKinstry said yes in 2017.

Dr. McKinstry’s thesis was related to the oral health experience of First Nations children requiring treatment under general anesthesia for early childhood caries. “My research was founded on qualitative research, specifically grounded theory. It happened to be the first qualitative research study to be successfully completed for the Master of Dentistry pediatric program at the U of M, thanks to my supervisors, Dr. Andrew Hatala and Dr. Robert Schroth,” she says. “And in many ways it validated what we already knew from existing research, and from working in communities for 12 years.” The study’s findings were that there were many access to care issues in First Nations communities in Manitoba. For example there was no dentist available in the community, or the dentist was too busy to see everyone that needed to be seen during their short time in the community. It also found that access to oral hygiene aids was a barrier to oral health because toothpaste and toothbrushes were expensive or difficult to obtain. Dr. McKinstry says that she asked about fluoridated water as part of her research. “And then later, I realized that some of the families I was interviewing had water delivered to their homes and stored in cisterns or kept water in buckets,” she says. “Further research revealed that some of the communities in Manitoba can go for days or weeks without water. Lack of fluoridation was the least of their concerns.”

Importantly, her research findings touched on Indigenous specific racism in dentistry in Canada. “This is relevant in contemporary Canadian health care, as professionals, we have come to learn following the tragic death of Joyce Echaquan that Indigenous-specific racism is embedded in all aspects of health care from Canada’s deep roots of colonialism,” Dr. McKinstry says. Echaquan, a member of the Atikamekw Nation, died in 2020 at a hospital in Quebec, but not before she had recorded footage of hospital staff making racist remarks towards her. After an inquiry, the Quebec Coroner concluded that racism and prejudice were contributing factors to Echaquan’s death.

The Role of Protector

Dr. McKinstry took on an academic position teaching and doing research into oral health and public policy, as well as clinical subjects, at the University of Saskatchewan, which she did for almost two years before parting from the university setting. In her position as a professor, her goals were the same as they’ve always been. She wants to use her knowledge and expertise to benefit First Nations children and communities.

Dr. McKinstry’s children have grown into young adults. “I worried at times that my obvious struggles throughout my academic journey would discourage my children from higher education,” she says. “This worry was put at ease as my children went on to complete programs in college and university. In fact, my daughter is currently in a Masters of Public Health program.”

In 2021, Dr. McKinstry and Natasha Newman founded the Indigenous Dental Association of Canada to improve Indigenous oral health with the support of Indigenous and non-Indigenous oral health providers, while respecting traditional ways of knowing.

Back in the late 1990s, Dr. McKinstry learned her traditional Indigenous name, Wabishki mitadim ojichidaa ikwe, which means White Horse Warrior Woman, during a ceremony with Elder Jules Lavallee at Red Willow Lodge. “Receiving my traditional name is something I had been longing for without knowing it. We had lost our culture,” she says. “When my name and the responsibility that came with my name was told to me in ceremony, everyone gasped. It was explained that my name came with the responsibility to protect those who needed to be protected,” she says. “It is a huge responsibility, and it is a responsibility that I take quite seriously.”

Indigenous Dental Association of Canada

The Indigenous Dental Association of Canada (IDAC) brings together the Indigenous dental community to support its vision of reconciliation. It provides Indigenous dental professionals with a community through which they can share resources, knowledge and experiences, while supporting approaches to oral health rooted in traditional ways of knowing.

The association’s Indigenous Oral Health Knowledge Translation Project will create tools and resources for communities to improve oral health. It will include a multimedia project to raise awareness about oral health care and services in Indigenous communities. As well, it will bridge cultural understanding and combat racial biases in oral health care.

“Importantly, while IDAC endeavours to support oral health providers, researchers, and affiliates to move forward on our reconciliation journey, our priority is to create a culturally safe community or Indigenous oral health providers, Indigenous students interested in the oral health profession, and Indigenous communities,” says Dr. McKinstry.

IDAC’s work contributes to safer,culturally-informed dental services for Indigenous Peoples, while also creating a network of Indigenous dental professionals from across the country. A $1 million grant from Indigenous Services Canada is supporting IDAC’s work for the next two years. In Budget 2021, the Government of Canada committed to take action to foster health systems free from racism and discrimination where Indigenous Peoples are respected and safe.

“This is part of the larger work that must be done to ensure that Indigenous Peoples have access to safe and culturally sensitive health care, free from racism and discrimination,” says the Honourable Patty Hajdu, minister of Indigenous Services Canada. “I commend the work and advocacy that lead to the creation of IDAC, and I look forward to following the progress ahead.”