Fall 2006 - North Dakota Medicine

‘Pathways Into Health’UND Selected as Test Site for National Effort toImprove Native American HealthAltanta Begay, a Navajo from Page, AZ, is the first student to train in CLS at UND under Pathways Into Health, a federal programthat allows students to take most of their education in their home towns, stay connected to their culture and obtain a first-rate education.Definitely.This is Altanta Begays swift, affirming answer whenasked if she would eventually like to return to her homecommunity to tend to the health care needs of other NavajoIndians in Arizona.I am close to home and close to my family, she says ofher hometown, Page, AZ. We have a lot of elderly where Ilive. Its important for the Navajos to take care of the elderly.Traditionally, her people led a healthy lifestyle, shesays, noting that her great-grandmother, whos over 100, ishealthy as a horse. In the past, elders in her familylooked after a lot of sheep, so were walking aroundconstantly; their diet consisted of corn, grains and wildpotatoes, onions and tea.As lifestyles have changed, Begay sees more diabetesand heart disease among Navajo people, and she wants tobe part of improving their health.Its really important to me to study these changes andtry to convince people to live the way our grandmothersdid, she says.Begay, who is working on a bachelors degree inclinical laboratory science (CLS) at the UND medicalschool, is the first student to participate in Pathways IntoHealth, a national project funded by the U.S. Departmentof Health and Human Services, through the Indian HealthService. The CLS program, the pilot program of PathwaysInto Health, is being watched closely as a model forencouraging Native Americans to enter health professionsusing distance education.Begay has fit most of her studies around her work as amedical technologist at Tuba City, AZ, but much has beentaken on-line, through distance education. She plans toreturn to Tuba City for her clinical rotations and complete herdegree by the spring of 2007. She already holds a bachelorsdegree in microbiology from Northern Arizona University.With her sights set beyond the laboratory, she hopes to goon to medical school, possibly in North Dakota (Its a prettynice place, Id like to come back here) or closer to homein Arizona, California or Nevada. She is considering familymedicine, pathology or pediatrics as possible career choices.She believes her CLS degree will provide an excellentfoundation for the study of medicine.I think itll help a lot, she says. Every (test) thephysician would order - we have to know how to work itand understand whats going on.NORTH DAKOTA MEDICINE Fall 2006 11