Students in the Alaska Dental Therapy Education Program of Iḷisaġvik College started their education in a new instructional facility on the Alaska Native Health Campus last week, marking new growth for the successful program providing oral health care for rural communities. Since 2004, dental health aide therapists have expanded access to oral health care for 40,000 people living in Alaska’s Tribal communities. In August 2020, the program became the first accredited dental therapy program in the United States when it ...

The Winter 2021 Mukluk Telegraph newspaper is now online! Featuring these stories: ANMC staff receive first COVID-19 vaccinations in AlaskaChevak: A success story in Tribal utility partnership‘Don’t let me have gone through this for nothing.’ Son shares mother’s legacy after her passing from colorectal cancer Also check out these videos: Protecting Our People: COVID-19 info in five Alaska Native languagesVideo 2020 Year in Review Or this recipe for caribou soup and share with others how to keep a healthy home! ...

This fall, construction was completed on new education and training facilities located in the Education and Development Center on the Alaska Native Health Campus. The Consortium’s Education and Development Center will provide Tribal Community Health Providers a place to learn, collaborate and find empowerment and opportunity, and strengthen the foundation for rural Alaska care for a brighter, healthier future for Alaska Native people. After years of makeshift, temporary spaces, the Education and Development Center will provide the Tribal health system’s ...

Today, the American Dental Association’s Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA), which accredits all U.S. education programs for dentists and dental hygienists, granted accreditation to a dental therapy education program for the first time, acknowledging the successful program at Iḷisaġvik College in Utqiaġvik. This is a victory for community-driven and equity-focused health policy, which instead of imposing solutions on communities, lifts up the solutions communities devise for themselves. Dental therapists are now working or authorized in at least some settings in ...

Photo above: Stop the Bleed training attendees at Maniilaq Health Center in Kotzebue practice packing a wound. Bleeding is the leading cause of preventable death after injury. In an emergency, someone can bleed to death in as little as three minutes with no intervention. In rural Alaska, the reality of this hits hard, as the isolated locations and lack of medically trained first responders can be a big factor. In many rural Alaska communities, first responders are often your friends ...

A critical incident is any situation that causes an individual or group to experience strong emotional reactions. Critical incident stress management (CISM) teams aim to assist people affected by potentially traumatic events by providing emotional first aid to compassionately support individuals and groups. The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and State of Alaska have partnered to provide four trainings to individuals interested in CISM. The courses are free and open to the public. The first two classes are introductory and ...