Adventures of day 3

It was the second day of clinical at the hospital today. Today we got to experience different sites then yesterday today I was in a pediatric primary care office. One of the great things about Cherokee Indian Hospital is the primary care offices are within in the hospital. I think that Cherokee has a great set up because the clinics and all other medical resources are within the hospital. Today’s experience showed me how child rearing is practiced. In the Cherokee culture it is not uncommon to see grandparents raising their grandchildren or even great grandchildren. It is also not uncommon to see children being raised by other Cherokee families. Many of times these arrangements are due to drug and alcohol use as well as unsafe/unstable families. The Cherokee do NOT like to place the children with families that are not within the same culture. In the Cherokee culture the Elders have much respect because of their history and knowledge they withhold. Today in my clinical experience I observed a single mom and her son as well as a women who identified one child as hers and one as her grandchild. Within the Cherokee boundary there are several programs that help support families. Those programs include services within the hospital, Behavioral Health Services for Cherokee Children, Adults and Families, Tribal Child Support Services, VAWA, Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault program. One word that I have often heard during my time in the medical field is resilience which is ability to bounce back. Many use the word especially when talking about children. The Cherokee children show resilience in many ways. Some of them were able to bounce back after the torture in boarding schools, to them testing positive of drugs at birth and recovering from that. I feel that because of their resilience many Cherokee children and families have hope and faith. They have hope that things will get better and their believe that something will come along a help aka faith.

Tonight we had a new experience… Our instructor received a new contact within the Cherokee boundary and to aid them in helping families that foster within the boundary we as students collected donations over the last few months back home and tonight we attended her husbands church service and gave them the items collected. The items included clothes, shoes and school supplies. I was very blessed that we were able to help people that we so welcoming and open to us.

" I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become" -- Carl Gustar Jung