Toronto, ON — April 24, 2025
The Clinical Trials Navigator (CTN) Indigenous Pathway marked a pivotal moment in its development with the successful hosting of the First Annual CTN Indigenous Meeting of Minds. This national gathering focused on building a culturally sensitive pathway for Indigenous Peoples in clinical trials, approached specifically through the lens of the Métis patient experience.
Bringing the Right People to the Table
Key leaders, Indigenous patient partners, researchers, and health advocates came together in Toronto for a day of intensive, hands-on workshops. Rather than starting from assumptions about what patients need, the meeting began by mapping the patient journey itself — tracing, step by step, where Métis patients encounter friction, uncertainty, or harm when trying to access clinical trials.
From Barriers to a Blueprint
That mapping work surfaced the barriers that would go on to shape everything built afterward: financial strain from travel and lost income, and a persistent lack of clarity around whether traditional medicine use could disqualify a patient from participating in a trial, among others.
From there, the meeting moved into solution-building. Participants worked through what a genuinely supportive pathway would need to include — conversations that directly established the 8 Core Elements now forming the backbone of the Métis Pathway Program.
The day's agenda also made space for a topic that's easy to leave until later but shouldn't be: data governance. Attendees discussed how CTN data would be governed going forward, ensuring practices align with Indigenous principles of data sovereignty, and began shaping a comprehensive work plan for the Indigenous Navigator role itself.
What Happens Next
The insights from this meeting didn't stay in the room. They're now being translated into an actionable work plan that will guide the piloting of a new, culturally safe navigation model — the next concrete step in moving the Métis Pathway from a shared vision into something patients can actually use.