The Things People Don't Tell Their Doctor
Most clinicians working with Native patients have no intention to act improperly. Yet they don’t even know what “improperly” means. They aren’t trained to understand Tribal practice and they haven’t been taught much about the history that explains why a Native family might walk into a hospital feeling already braced. The standard cultural sensitivity session offered to clinical staff during onboarding creates some awareness. It cannot manufacture competency within an hour or ninety minutes.
Both sides struggle. The clinicians have no clue which questions matter. The patients have deeply ingrained reasons to keep their answers short, some rooted in experiences that go back generations. Decisions get made based on little information because trust and mutual understanding just aren’t there.
The patient’s file documents these shortcomings. It lists missed appointments as well as treatment the patient started and discontinued prematurely. When the term “non-adherent” shows up in clinical notes, it’s meant as a fact about a person. It should be seen as information about a relationship.
Redbud's Seeing Our Native Patients program is built to close this gap. It includes interviews with Tribal healers and cultural education designed for people who work in clinics. At its core is a framework for understanding what each tradition does well and where Western medicine needs to expand its view to be more effective.
Healthcare is one place where this gap is visible. But the same disconnect runs through most of the fields Redbud works in.
Our 2026 Impact Report goes into more detail across all of these areas and shows how far we’ve come over the past several years.
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