DR Evan Adams

Who is he?

  • Dr. Evan Adams is a Coast Salish actor, producer, playwright and a family physician from the Tla’amin First Nation near Powell River, British Columbia. He is an alumnus of Pearson College UWC (year 9), who then went on to graduate from St. Michael's University School. In 2002, he received his Medical Doctorate from the University of Calgary. He has received numerous awards in his career, both as an actor, and as a physician.

His Career as an artist

  • Dr. Evan Adams is best known internationally for his acting roles in the films of Sherman Alexie, as Thomas Builds-the-Fire in the 1998 film Smoke Signals, for which he won an Independent Spirit Award in 1999 for Best Debut Performance, as well as Seymour Polatkin in the 2002 film The Business of Fancydancing, for which he won the Los Angeles Outfest award in 2002. More recently, he appeared in the 2017 films Indian Horse and Kayak to Klemtu.

  • His plays, including Dreams of Sheep, Snapshots, Dirty Dog River and Janice's Christmas, have been produced across Canada and internationally.

His career as a physician

  • After completing his medical degree from the University of Calgary in 2002, he went on to do his residency at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where he focused on Aboriginal health at the St. Paul’s Hospital as a Chief Resident. In 2009 Dr. Adams received his master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the Aboriginal health physician advisor in the Office of Provincial Health Officer in British Columbia from 2007 to 2012. He then served as deputy provincial health officer from 2012 to 2014. Since 2014 Dr. Adams has been Chief Medical Officer with the First Nations Health Authority in British Columbia.

Why is it important?

  • His work both in the medical, and in the entertainment field is extremely important because he actively enriches the Indigenous representation in both fields of work. As the first person to fill the role of Aboriginal health physician advisor in the Office of the Provincial Health Officer in British Columbia in 2007, he took a big step in the direction of bringing forward wellness directives generated by First Nations communities. He appears in a lot of movies that comment on issues present in Indiginous communities, as well as he also appeared in the documentary film Just Watch Me: Trudeau and the '70s Generation, speaking about his own experience as a young gay, First Nations man growing up in Canada during the Trudeau era.

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

VISIT Dr. Evan Adams' website: https://drevanadams.ca/


Bibliography