Yvette Roubideaux
First Woman to Serve as Director of the
IHS
On May 6,
2009 the Senate unanimously confirmed
Yvette
Roubideaux, Rosebud Sioux, MD, MPH, as the Director of
the Indian Health Service. She was sworn in on May 12,
2009. Roubideaux is the first woman to serve as the
director of the IHS in its 54-year history. The IHS is
responsible for providing preventive, curative, and
community health care to approximately 1.9 million of
the nation’s 3.3 million American Indians and Alaska
Natives in hospitals, clinics, and other settings
throughout the United States.
Roubideaux recently served as assistant professor of family
and community medicine at the University of Arizona College
of Medicine. Her work included teaching and research on
Indian health issues, with a focus on the quality of
diabetes care for American Indians/Alaska Natives and
Indian health policy. She was the Co-Director of the
Coordinating Center for the Special Diabetes Program for
Indian Demonstration Projects that has implemented diabetes
prevention and cardiovascular disease prevention in
activities in 66 American Indian and Alaska Native
communities. She is currently faculty in the
University of Colorado Native Elder Resource Center Native
Investigator Program. Roubideaux previously worked in the
Indian Health Service as a medical officer and clinical
director on the San Carlos Indian Reservation and in the
Gila River Indian Community.
Roubideaux has
worked on a number of national committees related to
diabetes, including the National Diabetes Program (NDEP)
Steering Committee, the NDEP American Indian Subcommittee
(Chair), and is the current Chair of the American Diabetes
Association Awakening the Spirit Native American
Team. She was also the President of the Association of
American Indian Physicians for 1999-2000 and was appointed
to the Department of Health and Human Services Advisory
Committee on Minority Health in 2000. She is
co-editor of the American Public Health Association (APHA)
book entitled “Promises to Keep: Public Health Policy for
American Indians and Alaska Natives in the 21st Century.”
Recruiting American Indian and Alaska Native students into
health professional and research was also part of
Roubideaux’s work. She was the Director of the
University of Arizona/Inter Tribal Council of Arizona
Indians Into Medicine (INMED) Program and Director of the
Student Development Core of the Inter Tribal Council of
Arizona/University of Arizona American Indian Research
Center for Health. Roubideaux is one of the founders and
past co-Chair of the Native Research Network, Inc., and
received the 2004 Indian
Physician of the Year Award from the
Association of American Indian Physicians. She also
received the 2002
Outstanding American Indian Faculty Award
at
the University of Arizona.
Roubideaux received her MD from Harvard Medical School in
1989 and her MPH from Harvard School of Public Health in
1997. She completed the Primary Care Internal
Medicine Residency Program at Brigham & Women’s
Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts
and was board certified in internal medicine. She
completed the Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University
Fellowship in Minority Health Policy in 1997.
Dr.
Roubideaux as IHS Director, meeting with members of
the National Indian Health Board.
To read Dr. Roubideaux’s blog, biography, statements,
letters to tribal leaders and updates on priorities, see
the IHS Director’s Corner,