Eastern AHEC Rural Health Immersion - Student Reflections: Sarah Trent
Healthy Acadia has served as Maine’s Eastern Area Health Education Center (AHEC) since 2023. Our service area includes Washington, Hancock, Waldo, and Knox counties.
Maine AHECs provide community-based clinical training experiences to health professions students; encourage Maine youth to pursue careers in the health professions; offer training and continuing education programs to practicing health professionals; and develop public health approaches to address current and emerging community needs.
As part of this program, Healthy Acadia and community partners work together to create rural health immersion opportunities for health professions students to learn more about rural and underserved communities, including Rural Health Immersions (RHI) for Care for the Underserved Pathways (CUP) AHEC Scholars. and community-based experiential learning opportunities for non-CUP scholars.
We will periodically publish guest blog posts from AHEC Scholars who chose to share their experience with the program.
Guest post contributed by Sarah Trent, UNE COM Student. Sarah participated in our October 2023 RHI and reflects on the experience.
On the first day of my Rural Immersion, I got to learn from Dr. Murnik about Northern Light Hospital and Castine Community Health Clinic, discover how local food is grown at King Hill Farms, and hear about how Healthy Peninsula has implemented programs to better their community.
In the evening, which I am primarily going to write about today, I traveled to the College of the Atlantic, and I attended “Our Bodies Carry out Personal Stories and the Stories of our Ancestors: Reconciling the Harmful Effects of Historical Trauma While Focusing on our Individual Healing Journeys” by Donna Decontie-Brown. She presented on how our history of abuse shapes us into who we are today, with an emphasis on how Native Americans were, and are currently, treated in the nation.
She started by providing statistics on how Native American people drastically differ from the national average in terms of decreased life expectancy, increased suicide rates, and increased chronic conditions such as diabetes mellites, chronic liver disease, and respiratory diseases. Immediately, I began to wonder why these statistics were so staggering; however, she followed with more information stating how 84.3% of Native women have experienced violence in their lifetime, 56% of Native women have experienced sexual violence, the rate of PTSD in Native adults in 4.4x the national average and many more. She bridged this gap in statistics by mentioning Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).
I received my minor in Child Maltreatment and Advocacy Studies so I really resonated with her warning about how ACEs have drastically impacted Native Americans. Traumatic childhood experiences are shown to have direct linkages to chronic conditions, decreased mental health, and high suicide rates. I quickly realized that these numbers she was showing about Native Americans were originating from how they have grown through traumatic life experiences starting from their ancestors till now. One part of her speech that connected my previous knowledge with her information today was when she talked about the epigenetics surrounding ACEs.
She spoke about how her mother’s genes physically changed when she experienced traumatic events and how these genes would inevitably be passed down to Donna herself. Donna began speaking about how exactly she, and her relatives, have experienced ACEs first hand. She spoke about how, when she was a young girl, her teacher showed her the Spencer Phips Proclamation, stating how people were to be rewarded if they killed Native Americans. Donna stated how this incredibly affected her as a child and made her wonder, “Who can I even trust?” I could not imagine being in Donna’s position so hearing her become emotional when speaking of these stories really showed the depth of trauma these experiences caused.
One part of her speech that really shocked me was when she spoke about the government and land theft of Native Americans. I had always known we stole land from Native Americans through extreme violence and mass genocide; however, I always assumed reservations that Native Americans live on were viewed as a “good thing.” To me, ignorant to the reality, reservations were maintaining the culture of Native American people; however, Donna stated how, through reservations, the government was able to physically starve them. She stated the government would pay people to kill their main food source, the buffalo, and make it so they were reliant on the government. Donna mentioned how this inevitably led to families attempting to overfeed their families, when they were able to, to ensure their survival. She mentioned how she saw a dramatic shift between lean, fit Native Americans to becoming more obese and therefore having more chronic conditions.
This initially shocked me, but I was even more surprised when she compared it to COVID. She stated how when COVID happened she wasn’t necessarily nervous about how she was going to get by, because to her she had already been living in isolation, not allowed to leave. She continued to speak about how these adverse experiences effected both her individually and her ancestors. I believe the most impactful aspect of Donna’s speech was when she talked about “boarding schools.” She spoke about how Native American children were taken from their homes between 1860 to 1970s and were essentially tortured, sexually assaulted, and majority killed. Donna stated how the effects of the boarding schools still impacted her and her relatives today.
In conclusion, Donna informed us how we could be “Good relatives.” She stated how the number one aspect we need to bring to all encounters in our future, especially as providers, is trust. She mentioned again how as a young girl she started wondering who she could even trust. She stated how many people in her community felt this way and how it is our jobs to ensure we are respecting the person in front of us and their religion, culture, and family. I think my biggest take away from Donna’s presentation was the idea of collaboration. She stated how we need to be doing our part to help advocate for our communities. She used the quote “Crabs in a bucket,” which means that if crabs are allowed in the wild then they will lift each other up on rocks, but the second crabs are forced into an environment they don’t fit in, they begin fighting each other for freedom. It is essential we allow people to live the way they feel most comfortable and not intervene in order to see the collaboration we need for better communities and an overall better nation.