TRADITIONAL MEDICINE/WESTERN MEDICINE

The debate over "conventional" and "unconventional" medical approaches on RBB is very interesting -- certainly for someone like myself.  Looks like it's time to post, in friendly fashion, this little piece of mine yet again.

Despite the wariness of much of our own family regarding Western Medicine, we have, of course, "produced" a fine young MD -- Thomas Gray Salter, our grandson/son.  Currently finishing his fifth and final year of residency at the University of Iowa hospital (psychiatry and internal medicine), he's been doing some traveling these last few weeks -- interviewing in a number of choice and interesting medical settings.  There's no question about his strong commitment to Western Medicine. BUT, he's an Indian and comes from a Native family (ours) where he has certainly seen enough to recognize the value of "unusual" medical approaches under certain circumstances -- and he definitely recognizes the value of certain "things unseen.")  H.

TRADITIONAL MEDICINE/WESTERN MEDICINE [HUNTER BEAR  SEPTEMBER 21 2008] From http://hunterbear.org/shooting_lupus.htm

  
      NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR:  [September 21 2008]

      I must say, in all honesty, that I am not a great admirer of "western medicine".  I was at least generally wary of it even back in the days when I was many decades away from elder status -- taking my basic cues from my Native father, who I recall went forty years or more without consulting a "western" physician. [If he, a fine father, excellent artist and teacher, and admirable figure on many significant fronts, had not consulted a new quart of 100 proof Old Crow each day for decades, he would have lived far beyond the 80 years he completed before transition.]  
      When it was clear, a little over five years ago, that I was seriously ill with something, I did, after dragging my feet for a good while, go to a doctor.  At that point, ignorance of autoimmune diseases by those particular docs, confused opinions and a botched colonoscopy searching for non-existent cancer -- all of this in the context of severe anemia -- led to near death via cardiac arrest [my heart was fine before that and is just fine now]. And even when, after a dozen medics finally  and jointly diagnosed "it" as a full blown case of systemic lupus [genetic and incurable], the initial primary control med -- prednisone -- gave me a severe case of diabetes and a near death coma. [The diabetes ended when that medicine was terminated and replaced.]  Now, I go as infrequently as I can to a good and listening doc who honors my concerns and inhibitions, and I take as little western medicine as possible -- avoiding all chemo drugs.


      Anyway, that's my pitch on that.

      We have a great deal of faith in traditional medicine [ritual and ceremony and natural remedies] as practiced by bona fide medicine people.  A Navajo medicine man often trains for as many as 17 years before he's considered a full-fledged practitioner.  There are comparable examples in numerous other Native tribal society/nations in the Americas -- as well as globally.  Anyone who observes a trained medicine person practice is genuinely impressed from many perspectives.

      On the other hand, one can find some good things to say about "western medicine" -- properly used.  In several months, our grandson/son, Thomas, will become an M.D. via the University of Minnesota -- but his program also contains, by design and by his own initiative, exposure to inter-cultural [especially vis-a-vis Natives] traditional medical approaches. His spouse, Mimie [Yrengah], from Zambia is in the health field as well.  We take their advice quite seriously.

      Around 1950, when I was sixteen, my parents and I, traveling from Flagstaff to Window Rock and Fort Defiance and Chinle on the vast Navajo reservation, stopped at nearby Ganado and visited a hospital.  The head person, a Dr Clarence Salsbury, complained that few Navajo people came -- and no elders.  My parents and I did not find that unusual.  That cultural inhibition at Navajo [and many other Native settings] modified a little as subsequent years passed, but it was not until United States Indian Health Service reached out to the medicine people, and indicated a willingness to work jointly in a context of mutual respect, that some things changed for the better.  The increasing number of Native people entering the mainline health fields-- M.D.s, R.N.s, the full array -- is a signal and obviously positive development.  But Natives into professional western medicine are almost always very cognizant of, and very sensitive to, the critical importance of traditional cultural views and practices.

      The following article from the Salt Lake Tribune discusses some of this -- with the focus on the Navajo and cancer.  It should be emphatically noted that most cancer at Navajo [and Laguna Pueblo] -- and some other serious diseases as well -- stem directly from the mining, milling, and refining of uranium within the Navajo Nation and its environs and some other Western American settings. [Canadian Natives have had their own lethal experiences.]  That all began in the late '40s and the '50s and continued for decades, with broadly lethal effects, killing and profoundly impairing thousands of people in many locations -- and wreaking poisonous havoc on livestock, wild animal life, air and water and earth. [The Navajo Nation government has now banned any uranium development in and around the vast reservation.  [We have things on our website about the Southwestern uranium tragedy and here is one page with a few related background pieces:
      http://www.hunterbear.org/a_native_rights_sampling.htm 
      I should add that, around my neck, I wear a Bear Claw -- and an Ignatius Loyola holy medal.


      Hunter [Hunter Bear] 
     

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq / 
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO

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