June 5th

I am beyond excited about the experiences and learning opportunities to come from this trip to the Cherokee Indian reserve. I am most excited to experience the culture of the Cherokees, to become certified in PEARS, and to gain this new knowledge that will hopefully be helpful to me in landing my dream job as a pediatric nurse. I am also excited to just experience the atmosphere of the Smokey Mountains, I have always loved the outdoors and nature so staying in a cabin on the smokey mountains is ideal for me. I am apprehensive about how the Cherokees will accept me and perceive me since I am not of the Cherokee Indian decent. When considering the social/cultural and environment influences on children, I found that in the Cherokee Indian culture, the women especially the elder women are highly respect and tend to be the main care takers of the family. I also found that in Swain County, the county we will be in, they have a program called Care Coordination for Children (CC4C). CC4C is a care management program coordinated by a registered nurse for infants and children showing evidence of risk for developmental, social, or medical problems ("Health Department, Child Health Programs", 2016). I also found that they track immunization status of children from birth to 2 years of age, in doing so they can keep track and ensure all children are getting vaccinated. The Cherokee Indians also tend to use herbal methods to help with injury and illness along with some Westernized medicines. The Cherokee Indians are also part of the NUKA Healthcare Model. The NUKA health care model for Native Americans provides dental, behavioral, traditional, and other health care support services. The NUKA health care act was built on 3 beliefs. 1. Customer Ownership; NOT patients. Individuals are treated as equals in the decision making process about the healthcare they are about to receive. The health care is a service and individuals are costumers. The second belief is relationship. Costumers are owners of their own lifestyle, choices, and decisions. NUKA focuses on understanding unique stories, values, and influences of the costumers. The third belief is called whole system. The costumer and the relation effect the entire system not just the health care delivery. The Native American people have been through a lot and have had a lot taken away from them. From what I understand, they still hold on to many of their traditions and values, although they have accepted Westernized medicine, they still use herbal remedies. I think the Indians are very unique and have a lot of history to their lifestyle and I can not wait to learn more about it. As of right now I can not think of and biases/ prejudice/ pride/ or stereotyping that I will need to set aside besides my view of Westernized medicine that I am used to practicing and advocating for, other than that, I am coming into this very opened minded and excited to learn more about their culture. 



Health Department, Child Health Programs. (2016). Swaincountync.gov. Retrieved 4 June 2016, from http://www.swaincountync.gov/health-child-health.html