Dr. Janet Smylie

Dr. Janet Smylie is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Ottawa. She practices and teaches family medicine, including until recently obstetrics, as a full time academic family physician in Ottawa. She received her medical degree from Queen’s University in Kingston in 1993. She then completed a family practice residency at the University of Ottawa. This was followed by the Women’s Health Scholars program at the University of Toronto, completed in 1996. Janet recently completed her Masters of Public Health Degree via the internet-based program at Johns Hopkins University. Based on her scholarly achievement during the Masters, she was also inducted as a member of the Delta Omega Public Health Honors Society. Janet has worked in a variety of Aboriginal communities both urban and rural. She is a member of the Metis Nation of Ontario. She is the acting co-president of Native Physicians in Canada. She is past chair of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologist of Canada’s Aboriginal Health Issues Committee. Her current research interests are focused in the area of Aboriginal health and include: health indicators of relevance to Aboriginal communities; interfacing Indigenous knowledge and Western science; and the health of young Aboriginal families. She is a research associate with the National Aboriginal Health Organization and sits on the Steering Committee, Fetal-Infant Study Group, and Maternal Experiences Study Group of the Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System.

Janet is one of the few Aboriginal physicians with a university appointment in Canada. She is has recently made the transition from clinician teacher to a clinician investigator, following the awarding of two research fellowships and one CIHR operating grant as principle investigator earlier this year.

The CIHR operating grant project is called Indigenous Knowledge and Knowledge Translation. The goal of the grant is to work with Aboriginal communities to identify one or more models by which research and technology can be effectively translated into community practices for better health outcomes. The models would be tested by the development and implementation and evaluation of a public health intervention in each participant community. The first piece of the project is building a relationship and trust with the communities and helping them identify health priorities. This is a three-year project. Dr. Smylie presented some of the background material that went into the proposal at the International Circumpolar Health Conference in Greenland in September 2003.

Dr. Smylie’s first research fellowship is in the TUTOR program. TUTOR stands for trans-disciplinary understanding and training on research, a joint initiative of The University of Western Ontario, Dalhousie University and the CIHR. The second fellowship is a joint AMS, Institute of Aboriginal Health and CIHR senior research fellowship in the history of aboriginal health and medicine. In both fellowships, the focus is on health surveillance for young Aboriginal families and maternal-child health. The project title of the second fellowship is Interfacing Western Health Science and Indigenous Knowledge Systems to Enhance the Health of Young Aboriginal Families.

For further information, please contact Dr. Janet Smylie using the Email contact form or by phone at 613 761-4334