Alumni changemaker Dr. Huma Ali is transforming health care culture

Learn more about RRU’s Alumni Changemaker Achievement Awards. 

As an emergency room physician in Calgary, Dr. Huma Ali is accustomed to responding to anything and everything.  

Incoming patients report to the ER with everything from physical emergencies like strokes, heart attacks and broken bones, to mental health emergencies and “social emergencies,” like victims of domestic violence seeking safety.  

Each emergency poses a different set of challenges for Ali and her colleagues, which extend beyond decisions about medical treatment. One often overlooked impact of working in an ER is the psychological injuries suffered by doctors, nurses and other members of the care team when a patient can’t be saved.  

Ali’s own experience prompted her to ask: Who cares for the caregivers? 

In attempting to answer that question – and, more crucially, to find and enact solutions – Ali has become a leader in Alberta Health Services, creating a foundation for healthcare workers to thrive mentally and emotionally.  

For her efforts in driving meaningful change in healthcare, Ali is being recognized by Royal Roads University this spring with an Alumni Changemaker Achievement Award. 

Ali, who earned a Master of Arts in Leadership with a Health Specialization in 2021, will be honoured with the Emerging Changemaker Award. The award recognizes an alum early in their career who is motivating change within their circles of influence. 

Who cares for the caregivers?  

Originally from Montreal, Ali says she went into medicine because that’s where her immigrant parents pushed her, and to follow in the footsteps of her older sister, Samina Ali, who’s now a pediatric emergency physician. She pursued emergency medicine because the chaos and high stakes in an ER both frightened her and drew her in. 

“I chose the thing that made me the most uncomfortable,” says Ali, adding, “It’s so satisfying.” 

Early on in her career, Ali understood the limits to medicine. Not all patients can be helped, sometimes due to systemic constraints like overcrowding, resource limitations and institutional pressures. 

“You don’t necessarily realize the impact on a personal level until you're in the environment... nobody told us there is a personal toll,” she says. “And having suffered moral injury, or not being able to have the resources to help somebody adequately… I would go home and feel so much distress because of the work I was doing.” 

“And I looked around and thought obviously, I'm not the only one.” 

Creating space for empathy and emotion 

Ali found that she and her colleagues were never taught how to care for one another in an effective way. She set out in search of that education and connected with The Well Doc Initiative, which provides peer support training to turn typical doctors’ room discussions that start with “Can I talk to you about a case?” into something productive and even therapeutic. 

“It's oftentimes less about the medicine, although it might be framed in that way,” she explains. “It's more seeking emotional [counsel]. Like, ‘There is something distressing about this situation for me as a doctor. Would you have felt the same way?’” 

Given the program’s positive impact on doctors, Ali and her social worker colleague Lindsay Storm sought out a similar initiative to engage all health care staff in conversations around mental health. They worked together to champion Schwartz Rounds at South Health Campus, the first in Alberta to hold these rounds, which now has expanded to other sites in Alberta. The Rounds program provides a dedicated safe space to talk about the ethical and social aspects of providing healthcare and to engage in dialogue about difficult feelings that arise when caring for others. 

‘A human being with a stethoscope around their neck’  

Following the Schwartz Rounds model, the hospital holds regular forums where all staff can attend and participate in conversation around a specific case or a subject, like “The patient I will never forget.” 

When the Rounds are centered around a case, the presenting physician is encouraged to share their story with a focus on their emotions, explains Ali. “It would be about the medicine, but the majority of the sharing would be about, for example, the effects on the doctor declaring the time of death.”  

“People who are in attendance don't necessarily understand what it's like to be a doctor, but they do understand insecurity, they can relate to imposter syndrome, they can relate to, ‘Am I doing the right thing? Did I say the wrong thing?’ They can relate to the feeling, the human experience,” she says. 

The effect is a recognition of: “that’s a human being with a stethoscope around their neck… We are not just our roles; we are also human beings taking care of other human beings,” says Ali.  

Centering compassion, inclusion, love and care 

Taking care of others required her to understand herself better, and Ali says her RRU leadership education played a critical role, as did her cohort, boasting students from different places and backgrounds. 

“I saw myself as somebody who was trying to move the needle towards compassion, inclusion, love and care,” she says. “And the people that I met, the way that we co-evolved, the tools that we were given to create a world that is inclusive meaningfully makes change.” 

• A note about the Schwartz Rounds: While the program concluded in 2025 after running out of funding, Ali and Storm are hoping to bring it back. They are also working with editors at a Canadian medical journal to publish a study on its impact. 

About the awards 

The Alumni Changemaker Achievement Awards showcase the diverse talents and accomplishments of RRU’s alumni network as they advance the university’s vision to inspire people with the courage to transform the world.    

A celebration for the award-winners will take place as part of Alumni Weekend May 1–2, 2026, which also includes a keynote address by Nobel Peace Prize nominee Sheila Watt-Cloutier, alongside inspiring talks, workshops, and tours.     
 

Huma Ali’s favourite story 

Huma Ali has seen lots of people on their worst days in her ER, but a story with a happy ending is her favourite to tell: 

She was doing triathlon training and was taking swimming lessons at a Calgary pool. The instructor, who knew what she did for a living, mentioned that pool staff had rescued a man a few weeks earlier who’d suffered a heart attack. It turns out the patient had been sent to her hospital and she had treated him — and he survived. 

The instructor called over the lifeguards who had helped that day. One had pulled the man from the water. One had started chest compressions. One had grabbed the automated external defibrillator. Ali shared with them the effects of their swift response. 

She left the pool and went straight to work. She asked the head of hospital to sign certificates of recognition for each of the lifeguards. She contacted the patient. She organized a gathering of every person who helped him live, and when he arrived, he brought each of them a unicorn keychain to recognize the unique, miraculous role each had played. 

Ali wipes away tears as she tells this story, saying, “That was an opportunity to connect with the humanity in the work we do every day,” and adding, “Strangers save strangers’ lives every day.”