In 2015, the Red Lake Hospital pharmacy collaborated with tribal leadership and tribal programs to expand access to naloxone and other reduction and prevention initiatives. The hospital team listened, sought understanding, and built a framework grounded in the Anishinaabe Seven Grandfather Teachings of Love, Respect, Honesty, Humility, Wisdom, and Truth to approach this important work across cultures, programs, groups, and partners. Using this framework, partnerships were expanded to include the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy.
Collaboration with academia offers opportunities for clinical and cultural experiences for student learners, as well as provides recruitment opportunities, continuous curricula for medical students and residents, and continuity clinics in unique geographic settings. Specifically, Red Lake pharmacists collaborated with professors at the University of Minnesota Duluth to understand potential pharmacist engagement in justice-involved settings and tribal wellness court. These settings provided opportunities to establish specialty pharmacist-managed behavioral clinical services, with early formative “how might we” discussions resulting in enhanced local collaborations and the establishment of robust pharmacist-delivered team-based care at the Red Lake Hospital.
Fast-forward one decade to the 2025 IHS Northern Tier Pharmacy Continuing Education meeting, where the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy was once again a partner. Expanding on collaborations with student collaborative agreements, the university opened its doors to host our training program. Offering a state-of-the-art connected experience for our teams, the IHS was able to host a robust and interactive meeting that included topic discussions and enhanced engagement for participants from 15 states and four IHS regions, where two novel pilot programs for pharmacy practice were conceived.
The relationships and collaborations expanded to include new friends in Indigenous pharmacy leaders from Australia and New Zealand, offering an international perspective on Indigenous health systems, ways to engage youth in pharmacy professional careers, and reframing culturally responsive training for IHS pharmacists.
The collaboration with the University of Minnesota, and new relationships with other Indigenous pharmacy leaders, showed we are all connected, and the Creator has us on this path. I am excited about what lies ahead in our collaboration.
