One on One with Markus - Kona Williams

Kona Williams says she gets asked frequently if her job as a forensic pathologist is like the show CSI. Her answer? Not at all. In fact, she says it's better.

"I absolutely love what I do," she said.

Williams, who lives in Sudbury, is the first Indigenous forensic pathologist in Canada. As an Indigenous person, she says she's able to offer a unique perspective in her job, pointing out members of her family have attended residential schools.

"I understand a lot of the social determinants of health related to that," she explained.

"I bring that to the table. There's a little more understanding about what Indigenous people are going through in this country, what they've already survived in this country."

But she points out "it goes the other way too."

"For Indigenous people in this country, I'm bringing them the expertise that I have," she explained.

"So hopefully, it makes some bridges and better communication between the death investigation system and Indigenous people, better relationships."

Williams, whose father is Cree from Manitoba and mother is Mohawk from Quebec, was born in Ottawa. Growing up, her dad was in senior management in the federal government with Indigenous Affairs. That meant moving about every six months to a year.

"My brother and I were completely adaptable," she said.

"We made friends quickly."

Williams always knew she wanted to work in science and eventually got accepted into medical school.

"There are no other medical doctors in my family," she said.

"None of us had any idea what I was getting into."

Choosing a specialty

In the beginning, she had no idea what her specialty would be. During her first month of medical school, a teacher came to her classroom to give a lecture on pathology.

"The way that she delivered the lecture was so interesting," she said.

She spoke to the teacher afterwards and was invited to the department to learn more. When she showed up to the morgue, three autopsies were taking place.

"To see the sights, the smells, one of them was a very bad trauma — I think my eyes were the size of dinner plates," she said.

"I couldn't even process it at the time."

However, that experience didn't faze her. Since starting her career as a pathologist, she's performed more than a thousand autopsies.

"This isn't something a lot of medical students consider … [as] they think of saving lives as opposed to dealing with death," she said.

"I think it does take somebody who is one, is comfortable around the whole aspect of death … or who just really isn't afraid of death."

Solving the puzzle

As for her work, Williams says it's a puzzle to figure out why someone died.

"You have to understand that the people who are dead, they are saying something," she said.

"You just have to have the right skills to be able to understand the language they're trying to tell you."

Williams says her work makes her realize how precious life can be.

"Death in our society is very sanitized. It's very behind the scenes. So when you actually see the reality of how people die, if you don't see that regularly it can be very shocking and very scary," she said.

"You realize how fragile life is and how quickly it can stop."