Jean Cuthand Goodwill

Jean Cuthand Goodwill OC (1928 – August 25, 1997) was a Canadian Cree nurse who, in 1954, became Saskatchewan's first Indigenous woman to finish a nursing program.

Biography Goodwill grew up on the Little Pine First Nation in Saskatchewan; she was a member of the Cree First Nations and a daughter of Cree leader John Tootoosis, about whom she would later write a biography. She decided to train as a nurse after spending three years at the sanatorium in Prince Albert recovering from tuberculosis. Graduating from the program at Holy Family Hospital in 1954, she then worked in rural Saskatchewan, where she reached patients in an emergency via bush plane or dog team. She was the first Indigenous woman to serve as "special advisor" to the minister of National Health and Welfare in the Canadian federal government; she also worked with the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

The Canadian Coast Guard ship Jean Goodwill is named for her.

Selected works John Tootoosis: A Biography of a Cree Leader (1982)

Awards Jean Goodwill Award, Manitoba Indian Nurses Association (1981) Honorary Doctorate of Law, Queen's University (1986) Officer of the Order of Canada (1992) National Excellence Award, National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation (now Indspire) (1994) In August 2022 the Canadian Coast Guard Ship CCGS Jean Goodwill was commissioned. The ship is based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.