Dr. Paula Cashin is Canada's first Indigenous radiologist and nuclear medicine physician. She is a Mi'kmaw physician who has worked in rural Newfoundland since 2009. Dr. Cashin completed medical school and diagnostic imaging at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She is a dual FRCPC certified physician with subspecialty training in nuclear medicine at the University of British Columbia and an interventional radiology fellowship at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Cashin is an advocate for equity, diversity and inclusion in medicine. Her work in advocacy began after a personal experience with systemic discrimination and harassment that prevented her from working as a physician for three years. She openly discusses these challenges and the systemic barriers to focus attention on changing the culture of medicine. Much of her advocacy work is done as a physician leader with Equity in Medicine, a group of Canadian physicians who are working tirelessly to advance equity, diversity and inclusion in medicine.
Dr. Cashin has recently completed a Master of Laws (LLM) at Osgoode Hall Law School. She is now focused on the creation of a national physician dispute resolution process to address the potential career loss and patient safety issues that arise from unresolved workplace conflict and harassment. This process is based on a mediation-adjudication model of dispute resolution with a focus on accountability, equity, education and restorative justice.