Benjiman Olerud, 18, put his arms through a white coat embroidered with his name and slung a stethoscope around his neck.
He carefully made his way through training stations at the Hennepin Healthcare Clinic and Specialty Center, putting on medical gloves to practice intubating a patient with a simulator, its lungs inflating as he pushed air through a tube. At one station, he placed his stethoscope onto a child-sized mannequin, learning how to listen for a heartbeat. At another, he practiced delivering a baby using a simulator.
Olerud was one of about 100 students who participated in the American Indian Youth with Stethoscopes summit at the clinic, which Hennepin Healthcare has put on annually for four years to get Native youth interested in health care.
Saturday’s summit also drew a group of youth who live on or near the White Earth Reservation who are learning about health care pathways through a University of Minnesota program called Mashkiki Maaginigan.
A White Earth descendant, Olerud said it’s uncommon for Native youth to get exposure to the medical field.
“With any profession, but especially health care, I feel like we’re very excluded and not represented,” he said.
A few years ago, Megan Lhotka, a community health liaison with the University of Minnesota Center of American Indian and Minority Health (CAIMH), attended the Youth with Stethoscopes summit and wanted to bring similar programming to the White Earth Nation.
She leads Mashkiki Maaginigan, which means “medicine gathering” in Ojibwe. Through events like classes and workshops, the program hopes to encourage more White Earth youth to explore careers in health and science fields. The events are culturally rooted and meld traditional Native practices with modern medicine.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is amazing,’” Lhotka, a White Earth descendant, said. “I just basically took their model and applied it to our community, and it worked so well.”
More than 100 youth have participated in the Mashkiki program, and Lhotka is currently partnering with five different schools on or near the White Earth Reservation to engage with students, including Olerud’s in Detroit Lakes.
The University of Minnesota’s Medical School recently received a $200,000 grant from the Medica Foundation for the center to continue its work with youth at White Earth for the next two years, until March 2028.
Jada Nezperce, 16, is Sioux and lives in Detroit Lakes. She has participated in Mashkiki events and enjoys the way they combine Native and modern healing practices. At one event she learned about the medicinal properties of plants and made a lotion. She also learned how to draw blood.
Nezperce said she’s particularly interested in becoming a psychiatrist, and wants to help Native people improve their mental health.
“I’ve seen a lot of Native Americans struggling,” she said. “I want to help the younger generation.”
Native youth often don’t picture themselves in health careers, Lhotka said, and the Mashkiki program aims to give them more exposure.
“Native people know how to take care of Native people, and we want our youth to know that they can go out and get an education and these experiences and then come back and work in their communities,” she said. “That’s what we want them to do. That’s what we need to happen.”
Native health care providers are significantly underrepresented in Minnesota and nationwide. According to the American Medical Association, Native people only represent less than half a percent of physicians in the United States. The White Earth Reservation, like other rural parts of Minnesota, has also faced a persistent shortage of physicians, which has impacted health care access.
Native people face health disparities due to colonization, trauma and a lack of access to health care, which has led to increased rates of diabetes, cancer and other conditions. Lhotka said the cultural understanding that Native people have as physicians have is invaluable.
“A more whole-body approach to health is what Natives view as health,” she said. “It’s a holistic way of healing.”
Beyond the Mashkiki program, CAIMH has a clinical arm at White Earth’s Indian Health Service clinic. University of Minnesota physicians and residents complete rotations at the clinic as part of an effort to fill gaps caused by the rural shortage of health care providers.
Stephen Selinsky is a doctor of internal medicine and pediatrics who spends about eight weeks a year in the White Earth clinic, as part of a University of Minnesota rotating cohort. The cohort helps create more continuity of care, he said but added that some patients don’t like seeing a new doctor each time they visit.
“The hope is providing as much continuity as possible, knowing that the design of the system is certainly imperfect,” he said.
Selinsky said many medical students have family members who work in medicine and discover the career path that way, but most Native youth don’t have that experience. The Mashkiki program hopes to change that.
“It lets them know not just that these opportunities are out there, but what they actually might look like,” he said.
The Mashkiki program plans to eventually share its results of the youth programming with other tribal nations, with hopes they may create similar programs.
Lhotka said the program aims to encourage youth to not just attend medical school to become a doctor, but to consider other positions as well, such as a certified nursing assistant or a phlebotomist.
“We just want our kids to know that no matter what type of field they go into, continuing their education and supporting their community is important,” she said.
Olerud will be starting nursing school at the University of Minnesota this fall. He plans to become a psychiatric nurse, and hopes to use his own experience with addiction to help others.
“I really just want to make an impact and help other people,” he said.
