Transcript: Yvette Roubideaux, M.D.
The Indian Health Service respects those who wish to seek traditional healing.
- [Robideaux:]
- It's very challenging to care for American Indians, Alaska Natives who come from different cultures and traditions, and even within a particular tribe there's a great variety in terms of the level of culture, traditionalism that an individual would have, and so some American Indian patients are very traditional. They don't want to come to the Indian Health Service clinic unless they absolutely have to, and then they'll see their own traditional healers, and we support that. We believe in the choice of the patient to receive healthcare any way that they want to, and so if they want to go to the traditional healer, that's fine with us. If they want to come see us, that's great. We do like to partner with the traditional healers and to respect what they do and to encourage the patients to let us know that they're seeing their traditional healer so that we can make sure we don't do anything that will interfere with that sort of treatment.