{"id":1936,"date":"2023-11-01T11:02:27","date_gmt":"2023-11-01T11:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=1936"},"modified":"2023-11-01T11:02:31","modified_gmt":"2023-11-01T11:02:31","slug":"medical-school-on-cherokee-reservation-will-soon-send-doctors-to-tribal-rural-areas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=1936","title":{"rendered":"Medical School on Cherokee Reservation Will Soon Send Doctors to Tribal, Rural Areas"},"content":{"rendered":"
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TAHLEQUAH, Okla. \u2014 Ashton Glover Gatewood decided to give medical school a second try after learning about a new campus designed for Indigenous students like herself.<\/p>\n

Gatewood is now set to be part of the first graduating class at Oklahoma State University\u2019s College of Osteopathic Medicine at the Cherokee Nation. Leaders say the physician training program is the only one on a Native American reservation and affiliated with a tribal government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the school that is everything that I need to be successful,\u201d said Gatewood, a member of the Choctaw Nation who also has Cherokee and Chickasaw ancestry. \u201cLiterally, the campus, the curriculum, the staff \u2014 everything was built and hired and prepared and planned for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The program in Tahlequah, the capital of the Cherokee Nation, aims to increase the number of Cherokee and other Indigenous physicians. It\u2019s also focused on expanding the number of doctors from all backgrounds who serve rural or tribal communities.<\/p>\n

Natasha Bray, an osteopathic physician and dean of the program, said most medical schools teach about barriers that can make it difficult for rural or Indigenous patients to get care and improve their health.<\/p>\n

But she said students in Tahlequah get to see these barriers firsthand by studying on the Cherokee Reservation and doing rotations in tiny communities and within facilities run by the federal Indian Health Service.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless you are living in that community, you\u2019re part of that community, you\u2019re seeing patients from that community \u2014 you can\u2019t begin to understand what those barriers to care are,\u201d said Bray, who is not Native American.<\/p>\n

For example, Bray knows that one town on the reservation is a 50-minute drive to the nearest delivery room, and that some patients trying to eat healthier live far from supermarkets and settle for convenience store food.<\/p>\n

Natasha Bray is an osteopathic physician and dean at Oklahoma State University\u2019s College of Osteopathic Medicine at the Cherokee Nation. Bray is passionate about recruiting the next generation of rural and Indigenous doctors. She grew up watching her father take care of patients from \u201cbirth to grave\u201d while working as a rural family doctor.(Arielle Zionts\/KFF Health News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rural America has a shortage<\/a> of health care providers. The Indian Health Service, which serves Indigenous patients in mostly rural areas, has also struggled to recruit and retain staff<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rural residents make up about 14% of the U.S. population but fewer than 5% of incoming medical students, according to a study<\/a> of 2017 data. Native Americans are 3% of the population but represented only 0.2% of those accepted to medical school for the 2018-19 school year, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gatewood, 34, who grew up in a city between the Chickasaw Reservation and Oklahoma City, first attended medical school at the University of Missouri. She said it was a great program, but it didn\u2019t match her learning style. And with few Native American students, it left her feeling disconnected from her culture.<\/p>\n

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She ended up leaving after three semesters. Gatewood went on to become a nurse and earned a master\u2019s degree in public health.<\/p>\n

Then, in 2019, six years after dropping out of the Missouri medical school, Gatewood learned about Oklahoma State\u2019s new campus in Tahlequah. She decided to once more pursue her dream of becoming a doctor. After taking classes in Oklahoma, she\u2019s now getting hands-on experience through a family medicine rotation in Baltimore.<\/p>\n

Half the 202 medical students in Tahlequah are from rural areas, and nearly a quarter are Native American. Most of the Indigenous students are from Oklahoma tribes. Others come from tribes outside the state, including from Alaska and New Mexico.<\/p>\n

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Students practice manipulating one another at the osteopathic medical campus in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Osteopathic schools graduate more students who decide to work in primary care and in rural areas than do schools for allopathic doctors, or MDs.(Arielle Zionts\/KFF Health News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tahlequah has about 16,800 residents. It\u2019s more than an hour east of Tulsa, home to Oklahoma State\u2019s other osteopathic medicine campus.<\/p>\n

Osteopathic physicians, or DOs, attend separate medical schools from allopathic doctors, or MDs. The schools have similar curricula, but osteopathic colleges also teach how to ease patient discomfort through physical manipulation of muscles and bones. Osteopathic schools graduate more students who decide to work in primary care and in rural areas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Cherokee Reservation spreads across roughly 7,000 square miles in eastern Oklahoma. It\u2019s home to about 150,000 Cherokee citizens, most of whom live in rural areas, said Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. Hoskin grew up in a small town that was once served by a doctor who traveled across the reservation, treating patients in a recreational vehicle.<\/p>\n

The Cherokee Nation now operates 10 hospitals and clinics to ensure that all citizens live within a 30-minute drive of care. Hoskin said this means the reservation has better access to health care than much of rural America.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are not many communities in this country in which you would see that sort of investment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Still, access to care remains challenging for some rural residents on the reservation, Bray said. The reservation has significant poverty, and some people lack cars or cell or internet service. Cherokee residents have high rates of diabetes, obesity, addiction, and heart disease, Bray said.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Cherokee Nation hospital is one of 10 health facilities on the reservation. The tribe plans to build a new hospital because the existing one is outdated and too small for the number of patients it sees.\t\t\t\t\t\t(Arielle Zionts\/KFF Health News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe orange on Oklahoma State University\u2019s medical school building in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, represents the university\u2019s colors, while the swirls are a Cherokee symbol for water.\t\t\t\t\t\t(Arielle Zionts\/KFF Health News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Cherokee Nation spent $40 million of its own revenue \u2014 including from casinos and federal contracts \u2014 to construct the college building on its medical campus, which includes a hospital and outpatient center. The tribe is responsible for maintenance, while Oklahoma State pays for the faculty and equipment.<\/p>\n

The college building features large windows, Cherokee symbols etched into concrete, and orange accents \u2014 a shoutout to the university\u2019s colors. Inside, signs are written in both English and Cherokee.<\/p>\n

On a recent afternoon, students practiced osteopathic manipulative therapy on one another inside a classroom. Down the hall in a simulation center, lifelike patient models lay with their mouths agape on hospital beds.<\/p>\n

Next door at the hospital, medical student Mackenzie Hattabaugh checked on Chyna Chupco, who was recovering after giving birth to her first baby. Hattabaugh asked Chupco questions to make sure she was reaching recovery milestones and not showing signs of complications. She also felt Chupco\u2019s uterus to make sure it was healing properly.<\/p>\n

Hattabaugh, who is not Native American, grew up in Muldrow, a town of about 3,300 on the reservation. The 24-year-old said the town sometimes had a doctor but never a hospital or urgent care clinic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to go back to around my hometown and perhaps be a staple in my community, to become a physician and provide people health care who usually have to drive 30 minutes or more to get it,\u201d said Hattabaugh, a first-generation college student.<\/p>\n

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Medical student Mackenzie Hattabaugh checks on Chyna Chupco, who was recovering after giving birth. Chupco said she thinks the Tahlequah medical school program will produce doctors who understand people from rural and tribal areas: \u201cIt\u2019s not very popular to have physicians that are aware of what it\u2019s like to come from a small town, to grow up in poor communities.\u201d(Arielle Zionts\/KFF Health News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Students said studying at the Tahlequah campus prepares them to work in tribal and rural areas in ways that might not be possible at other medical schools.<\/p>\n

Charlee Dawson, a 27-year-old medical student and citizen of the Cherokee Nation, said rotations within the Indian Health Service help students understand how the system\u2019s care and complex billing procedures differ from those of other health facilities.<\/p>\n

The program helps students understand what health problems are more common among Native Americans, Gatewood said. She said her previous medical school taught students about the high rate of diabetes among Black patients, but not the rate for Native Americans, which is the highest of all U.S. racial groups.<\/a><\/p>\n

The students also said they\u2019ve learned to ask Indigenous patients not just what pharmaceutical drugs and supplements they\u2019re taking, but also whether they\u2019re using traditional medications or working with a healer.<\/p>\n

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Charlee Dawson, a member of the Cherokee Nation, could cut her commute time in half by studying at Oklahoma State University\u2019s osteopathic medicine campus in Tulsa. She said she makes the hour drive to the Tahlequah campus on the Cherokee Reservation because it will better prepare her to serve Indigenous and rural patients.(Arielle Zionts\/KFF Health News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Native Americans have long received inadequate, discriminatory, and unethical health care. Children died of infectious disease outbreaks during the boarding school era<\/a>. The Indian Health Service sterilized thousands of women<\/a> in the 1960s and \u201970s. Today, the agency remains chronically underfunded<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This has led some Indigenous people to mistrust the health care system. But several of the Tahlequah students said they\u2019ve bonded with patients who share similar backgrounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really comforts patients to know that someone like them is taking care of them,\u201d said Caitlin Cosby, a member of the Choctaw Nation.<\/p>\n

Cosby, 24, said she once had a patient who asked, \u201c\u2018Are you Native?\u2019 And I said, \u2018I am!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The patient told Cosby he was proud of her.<\/p>\n