I am working on recruiting and educating women on the Pine Ridge reservation on women’s breast health. On July 17-21, a fellow intern Frankie and myself will be traveling to Lacrosse, Wisconsin to recieve training about womens breast health as well as going along as mentors with a group of students from Crazy Horse School. The goal is to recruit and educate women on breast health. We will recruit them to either Gunderson’s Mobile Mamogram unit or to the Indian Health Service’s main hospital in Pine Ridge, SD. The goal is 200, 100 for each intern. Idealistically, at least three fourths of the women would not have had a mamogram within the last year . So by educating women on the reservation about breast health they are more likely to get a mamogram in order to increase early detection of breast cancer. I will be focusing more in the Wanblee area while Frankie does the kyle area. So within the past week ( July 11-14) with the youth leadership camps going onin Wanblee and Kyle, I have been pushed out of my comfort zone when it comes to communicating with new people. I like the challenge, It let’s me know that I am trying and not just being another body in the room, I have a goal to become more social with people and be more apart of the conversations that are happening, so thus far, I have been enjoying this and I can not wait to see what the rest of internship has in store for myself.
