IHS Jobs

[moonlight]

Has anyone looked into working post residency for the Indian Health Service? I heard from a friend there might be some student loan forgiveness with IHS employment. Any idea who I could find that information? TIA!

[ladymoreta]

I haven't, but that's where I went for medical care from infancy through college, and it was great! The clinics are usually older and not as nice as private practice ones, but I was so grateful to have it!

[diggitydot]

Depending which rez and where it's located, it may not be a bad gig. DH grew up on one north of Seattle and it's a gorgeous area.

They're typically very rural. Where we're moving next month is about two minutes from the rez.

[ladymoreta]

Ah, I didn't think about them being on reservations in other states. In OK, they're just stand-alone clinics in towns because so much of the land is owned by the tribes in parcels.

[diggitydot]

Each location can vary drastically from another. The reservation that DH grew up on is an amazing, beautiful place with a decent economy and very well-funded services for their population. The council has done a great job planning and anticipating the needs of their people.

The one we'll be right next to is nothing like the one DH and his family were fortunate enough to enjoy. It isn't a shit hole like many reservations can be, but without a major employer in town, their economy is significantly more depressed. However, it's no where near as economically depressed as some of the ones we saw when we lived in AZ.

If living in a rural area is cool beans to you, I'd do it. Well, we kind of are going to be doing it as the population in our new community is about 25% Native American. They even teach Salish in one of the high schools. There are fewer than 1,000 Salishan speakers left in the world.

All PNW tribes are different offshoots of the Salish people with linguistic similarities, though the further apart they lived (or the larger the geographic barriers between them), the more varied those differences become.