L-R: Vicki Yellow Old Woman and Dr. Sayeh Zielke. (Supplied by Government of Alberta)

By David Opinko

AHS board welcomes two new members from Southern Alberta

Oct 1, 2020 | 1:40 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – Alberta Health Services has announced two new members for its board of directors.

Health Minister Tyler Shandro has named Vicki Yellow Old Woman and Dr. Sayeh Zielke.

“Ms. Yellow Old Woman and Dr. Zielke bring skills and perspective that will augment and broaden the experience of the AHS board. I look forward to continuing to work with the board as we work to ensure the health system is sustainable and responsive to current and future health-care needs of Albertans.”

Dr. Zielke is a physician based in Lethbridge who specializes in treating patients with heart disease. She has served on the executive of the Alberta Medical Association and holds faculty appointments at the University of Calgary and University of Lethbridge.

“It’s an honour and a privilege to serve my fellow Albertans and give back to a province that has given so much to my family and to me,” says Dr. Zielke.

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Yellow Old Woman is an experienced financial professional and a member of the Institute of Corporate Directors. She has held various financial and board roles, including being the corporate financial officer for Siksika Health Services.

“I am deeply honoured and humbled, and look forward to serving Albertans, including First Nations, through the AHS board, bringing the experience of finance as well as the First Nations perspective,” says Yellow Old Woman.

Both of the new appointees will serve a three-year term on the AHS board and can hold that position of a maximum of 10 consecutive years.

More details on Dr. Zielke and Yellow Old Woman are below in their AHS biographies:

Vicki Yellow Old Woman

Vicki Yellow Old Woman is an experienced financial professional and member of the Institute of Corporate Directors who has served in various financial and board roles over several decades. Since January 2009, she has been the corporate financial officer for Siksika Health Services, restructuring the finance and accounting area within Siksika Health. She also currently serves on the board of directors for the Aboriginal Finance Officers Association (AFOA), Alberta, and on the Audit Committee of AFOA Canada.

Yellow Old Woman previously served in the roles of chief financial officer, treasurer and Audit Committee chair for Siksika Resource Developments Ltd., the business arm of Siksika Nation, located in southern Alberta. She also worked at CIBC for 14 years in various positions, and held positions of financial officer for Siksika Nation Housing Society and officer manager for the Native Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

Yellow Old Woman completed a bachelor of arts in sociology with a minor in native studies from the University of Calgary in 1998. She currently resides with her husband of 46 years on the Siksika Nation east of Calgary.

Dr. Sayeh Zielke

Dr. Sayeh Zielke is an author, medical director and cardiologist based in Lethbridge. She currently serves as medical director of Chinook Cardiology, which she started in 2013; the Heart Function Clinic at Chinook Regional Hospital, where she has medical privileges; and the Cardiac Rehabilitation Program, part of the Alberta Healthy Living Program of Alberta Health Services.

Dr. Zielke completed her master of international business administration in 2001 at the University of Ottawa. She went on to receive her medical doctorate, also from the University of Ottawa, and was class valedictorian. Dr. Zielke completed her internal medicine and cardiology residencies at the University of Calgary. She further completed training in both cardiac CT and echocardiography at the University of Oxford Hospitals and the Royal Brompton Hospital in London, England. She currently holds faculty appointments as clinical lecturer at the University of Calgary, Department of Cardiac Sciences, Cummings School of Medicine, and as adjunct associate professor at the University of Lethbridge, Department of Neuroscience.

Dr. Zielke was born in Iran and immigrated to Canada as a teenager, finishing high school in Thunder Bay, Ont. She and her husband have a pug named TAVI.