Speaker Name: Dr. Lana Potts
Session Description:
This keynote draws on a life story of enduring hardship, awakening purpose, and catalyzing systemic change within Indigenous health. Dr. Lana Potts, a Blackfoot (Niitsitapi) and Gwich’in physician and community leader, reframes resilience as a daily, intentional practice rather than a singular gift. Through personal chapters—from residential school survival and family loss to groundbreaking community-based care—she illuminates how identity, lineage, and ceremony become engines for healing, governance, and equity.
Learning Objectives:
• • Roots and rise: How lineage, culture, and intergenerational knowledge shape leadership, courage, and the ability to envision a healthier future for one’s people.
• • Decolonizing care: The founding of the Aisokinaki Clinic as a model of Indigenous-led, holistic medicine that integrates ceremony, land-based healing, and community nourishment to address the ongoing opioid crisis.
• • Purpose beyond self: Strategies for sustaining mission-driven work—balancing service, advocacy, and personal well-being while scaling impact.
BIO
Dr. Lana R. Potts BScN MD CCFP Saahwaahpiim (Last to Come In) is a highly accomplished and esteemed physician from the Piikani Nation, renowned for her exceptional expertise in healthcare management and leadership. With a passion for patient care and a commitment to advancing medical practices and Indigenous Health, Dr. Potts serves as the Medical Director and Founding CEO at Aisokinaki Clinic, an Indigenous Led Health Care program grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing. In 2024 she was also hired as a Director in Nation Building at Deloitte.
Dr. Potts completed her medical education at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, where she demonstrated outstanding academic excellence and led groundbreaking research in utilizing social determinants as a leading cause of health deficits in First Nation communities. Following medical school, she pursued specialized training in Indigenous Health at UBC, where she honed her clinical skills and developed a profound understanding of patient care and health policy development. Lana co-founded and implemented a National Covid-19 vaccine program directed toward First Nation communities. She brings 23 years of experience in healthcare and is considered a content expert in Indigenous Health communities and traditional health governance structures. Lana is married to her partner Robert and together they raise their two beautiful children, Annataki and Nodin.