After a long afternoon of travel on Thursday, we woke up on Friday to start our Alaskan adventure. The first thing I did when I woke up was look out the window. I could not believe the view as the beautiful mountains were right there and I had not seen anything like that before! Since we had a little time in the morning, we wandered around downtown, stopped at a little coffee shop, and took pictures of the mountains as we were all amazed. The coffee shop we stopped at was very interesting. It was like a little box car. As we drove through town, I discovered that they are all over and very common to Alaska. We then made our way to the Alaska Native Medical Center where we ate lunch first. I wanted to try something new so I tried the Reindeer stew with rice and I also had some salmon. It was the first time having reindeer and I thought it was great! It was tender and tasted like beef. After lunch we had some presentations and tours. The first unit we learned about was the traditional healing unit. This unit is part of the southcentral foundation clinic. When I walked into the traditional healing meeting room, I felt relaxed and welcomed. They have tribal doctors who provide services to the patients (who are referred to them). I learned that the services they provide are either traditional counseling or traditional physical (meaning with their hands). I found that all of their services were very interesting and have been beneficial for many Alaska Natives. For example, they did a study and found that traditional healing has decreased the number of speciality visits by 12, 4 fewer emergency department visits, 6 fewer ambulatory visits, and 7 fewer primary care clinic visits. I found that to be a big decrease and hope that the rest of the United States can progress into putting traditional healing into their practice. After learning about traditional healing, we listened to a presentation by 2 nurses on the primary care side of the center. I found it great that they provide patient centered care to a great deal. Instead of calling the people a “patient” they refer them to “customer-owners.” They do this because healthcare professionals want the customer-owners to be part of their care. The case managers/nurses make sure that all the customer-owners are getting the care they need. Such as, if someone is coming in for an appointment, they will make sure that if they need any other medical care done they will do it at the same appointment so they don’t have to come back. This is due to the many people who travel from out of town. Alaska is only made up of 20% of roads. After the presentation, we got to tour the Medical Center. The Native Medical Center is the main part and provides any units such as the emergency department, pediatrics, OB, ortho, etc. The units and rooms were laid out similar to the hospitals in MN. One thing I found interesting though was the Native artwork that was displayed on each floor. Each display had artwork from many of the different cultures so it was cool to see the different ways that the cultures made art. The detail of each piece of work was incredible and so different between the cultures.
Later in the day, we went to the Alaska Native Heritage Center. I was quite tired by the time we got to the heritage center as it had been a long day of travel the day before and the time change, but I woke up very soon after arriving. We listened to a speaker, who’s name was Yaari. She is a member of the Yupik tribe located on the St. Lawrence Island. The name Yupik stands for “genuine people.” I woke up fast because her presentation caught my attention. She talked about Alaksa, the many cultures within Alaksa, and the story of her life and how she became a traditional healer. She told us stories about her culture as a young child compared to how it is now. She said that she believes her culture is a huge part of her life still, but has realized that she is surrounded with many other people and cultures sos he has changed her ways some. Learning about the Alaska Native cultures was amazing and made me realize that there is a big difference between people who live in the same state. The Alaska Native prefer to live off land due to building houses, hunting for food, and using all the animal parts for the animal weather they eat it or make something out of it. Yaari also taught us about the different ways people communicate between the cultures. She explained that eye contact has never been a respect thing in her culture, but of course in our culture poor eye contact is disrespectful. Yaari was also spiritually gifted in which she is a healer. I was very curious and was questioning in my head weather it really worked. She demonstrated on Sarah how she does her healing. She put her hand on Sarah’s chest and used her energy to show how she was gifted. It was very cool to see that Yaari knew stuff about Sarah without even knowing who she was previously.
The first day was great! I learned a lot about Alaska and the Alaskan Natives. Three unique aspects of healthcare of this population are the traditional healing, the many differences between the cultures, and the lack of places for people to receive healthcare. These aspects of healthcare in this population are very different compared to our healthcare system. We don’t provide traditional healing, we don’t have as many cultures that are separated by parts of the state, and we have a lot bigger road system for people to receive and get to healthcare facilities. I think I will apply what I have learned through my experience of learning today in my future of nursing care by being cautious and getting to know my patient to the best ability. It is important to know where your patient is coming from and their beliefs before caring for them in-depth. After my learnings today, I also found it important treat your patient whole-heartedly and provide all the care needed for that patient. Sometimes as a young nurse, we may overlook things that could of been done at an appointment but we don’t look further into it. For example, a patient is in for an appointment with the physician, but they need a lab draw in the near future for something. It is easy to put that off, but it would be so much easier to just have the patient do it since they are there already and wouldn’t haven’t to come back again.
Later in the day, we went to the Alaska Native Heritage Center. I was quite tired by the time we got to the heritage center as it had been a long day of travel the day before and the time change, but I woke up very soon after arriving. We listened to a speaker, who’s name was Yaari. She is a member of the Yupik tribe located on the St. Lawrence Island. The name Yupik stands for “genuine people.” I woke up fast because her presentation caught my attention. She talked about Alaksa, the many cultures within Alaksa, and the story of her life and how she became a traditional healer. She told us stories about her culture as a young child compared to how it is now. She said that she believes her culture is a huge part of her life still, but has realized that she is surrounded with many other people and cultures sos he has changed her ways some. Learning about the Alaska Native cultures was amazing and made me realize that there is a big difference between people who live in the same state. The Alaska Native prefer to live off land due to building houses, hunting for food, and using all the animal parts for the animal weather they eat it or make something out of it. Yaari also taught us about the different ways people communicate between the cultures. She explained that eye contact has never been a respect thing in her culture, but of course in our culture poor eye contact is disrespectful. Yaari was also spiritually gifted in which she is a healer. I was very curious and was questioning in my head weather it really worked. She demonstrated on Sarah how she does her healing. She put her hand on Sarah’s chest and used her energy to show how she was gifted. It was very cool to see that Yaari knew stuff about Sarah without even knowing who she was previously.
The first day was great! I learned a lot about Alaska and the Alaskan Natives. Three unique aspects of healthcare of this population are the traditional healing, the many differences between the cultures, and the lack of places for people to receive healthcare. These aspects of healthcare in this population are very different compared to our healthcare system. We don’t provide traditional healing, we don’t have as many cultures that are separated by parts of the state, and we have a lot bigger road system for people to receive and get to healthcare facilities. I think I will apply what I have learned through my experience of learning today in my future of nursing care by being cautious and getting to know my patient to the best ability. It is important to know where your patient is coming from and their beliefs before caring for them in-depth. After my learnings today, I also found it important treat your patient whole-heartedly and provide all the care needed for that patient. Sometimes as a young nurse, we may overlook things that could of been done at an appointment but we don’t look further into it. For example, a patient is in for an appointment with the physician, but they need a lab draw in the near future for something. It is easy to put that off, but it would be so much easier to just have the patient do it since they are there already and wouldn’t haven’t to come back again.