American Indians fitting into Medical School
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1326011100600522Abstract
This paper describes a qualitative study of how indigenous people experience medical school in the United States. Nine American Indians and Alaska Natives participated in the study: five women and four men. They came from eight different tribes, but they have asked me to protect their confidentiality, so I will not identify their tribes. Their ages ranged from 27 to 39. Five of them had children. Two of them were unmarried.
In the United States, the need for indigenous physicians is great. Twice as many American Indians die from homicide and suicide as non-Indians in the United States (Wallace, Kirk, Houston, Amnest, and Emrich, 1993); three times as many die from accidents and more than four times as many die from alcoholism (Indian Health Service, 1996). Diabetes is rampant among American Indians and Alaska Natives. Women are the hardest hit (Gilliland, Gilliland, and Carter; 1997). More than five times as many American Indian and Alaska Native women die from diabetes than non-Latina white women.
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Copyright (c) 1999 The Author(s)
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