The Changing Face of Medicine: Dr. Yvette Roubideaux

The National Library of Medicine has organized an exhibition honoring the lives and accomplishments of women doctors who are making a difference in the world of medicine. The exhibition, "Changing the Face of Medicine: Celebrating America's Women Physicians" is on display at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Tribal Connections will devote a space each month to featuring accomplished Native American women doctors from this exhibit.

Dr. Yvette Roubideaux, M.D., a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe, is an assistant professor in both the College of Public Health and the College of Medicine at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Dr. Roubideaux completed her M.D. at Harvard Medical School in 1989 and received her M.P.H. at Harvard School of Public Health in 1997. After completing the Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy, she shifted her career in the direction of teaching, research, and service related to Indian health issues and Indian health program development. In 1998, Dr. Roubideaux completed a fellowship at the Native American Center of Excellence, at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle.

Originally from South Dakota, Dr. Roubideaux worked for three years in Arizona for the Indian Health Service as a clinical director and medical officer at the San Carlos Indian Hospital on the San Carlos Apache Indian reservation. She also worked for one year as a medical officer at the Hu Hu Kam Memorial Hospital on the Gila River Indian reservation. Dr. Roubideaux has dedicated her career to improving American Indian health care, focusing on diabetes as a pervasive chronic disease.

In 2001 she co-edited a book on Indian health policy with Mim Dixon, Ph.D., entitled Promises to Keep: Public Health Policy for American Indians and Alaska Natives in the 21st Century.

To view the entire profile of Dr. Roubideaux, please visit http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians/biography_280.html