HEATHER PETERSEN

Medical school student Heather Petersen’s desire to become a physician was forged as a little girl waiting in a crowded clinic on the edge of South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

“We used to have to wait forever to see a doctor,” Petersen recalls. “There just never were enough health care providers.”

Now, as a student at the Sanford School of Medicine of the University of South Dakota, Petersen understands the system of American health care that provides less than adequate services for Native Americans.

It’s a system she intends to change.

“The whole reason I’m going to be a doctor is to serve my people,” said Petersen.

Overcoming Barriers

After her grueling first year of medical school and raising her two-year old daughter Trinity Jane, Petersen knows the road to becoming a family doctor won’t be easy.

But overcoming life’s obstacles is nothing new.

Her parents divorced when she was three, and she lived with her father, a Native American, in one of the poorest counties in the United States.

During her senior year of high school, she volunteered with her community’s ambulance service, “soaking up all the knowledge.” After high school, she enrolled in a university about 90 miles away, with the intention of earning a degree in biology and then applying for medical school. But during her first year of college, she was forced to return home to help her father, who was suffering from a debilitating depression and alcoholism.

The following fall, she enrolled at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology to pursue her undergraduate degree, commuting to school every day and helping her father maintain the family ranch.

“He was so proud of me, always bragging about his baby, the future doctor,” she said, “No one in my family had completed college.”

Preparing for Medical School

But tragedy struck during Heather’s junior year when her father died in a car accident.

Fortunately, Heather’s family and friends convinced her not to give up.  With their encouragement she returned to school the next fall, eventually graduating with honors and an undergraduate degree in chemistry.

During her senior year she met her future husband; they married and started a family soon after she graduated. Now, Heather says her daughter is her inspiration.

“I want her to grow up knowing that she can do anything she puts her mind to, and what better way to teach her that than to actually show her?”

While conceding the MCAT wasn’t easy, it proved less challenging than some of the other trials she faced.

Completing Residency

By her estimate, after she completes her residency, the Indian Health Service (IHS), a program of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, can expect to have a freshly-minted doctor eager for the challenges posed in providing rural health care to underserved Native Americans.

Under an IHS scholarship Petersen won, the government will pay her tuition and provide a stipend for living expenses if she pledges to work for them for 4 years after completing her residency.

“This works out great for me because I wanted to work in an IHS facility anyway,” Petersen said.

She can barely wait for that day.

“Growing up, I saw the poverty, alcoholism and diseases that are so prevalent among Native American people,” she said. “These things are treatable – even preventable – and I want to do everything I can to make a positive impact on the health of Native Americans.”