A physician and professor who has dedicated her career to combating diabetes, Yvette Roudideaux is the first Native American woman to head the Indian Health Service since it was founded in 1955. She was sworn in May 12, 2009.
Born in 1963, Roubideaux is a member of her father’s tribe, the Rosebud Sioux. Her mother’s tribe is the Standing Rock Sioux. Roubideaux grew up in Rapid City, South Dakota, and experienced first-hand the limited health care services available to Native Americans. “I often waited four to six hours to see a doctor,” she once wrote, “As a teenager, I realized that I had never seen an American Indian physician.” Driven to study medicine, she was accepted into Harvard, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree, and then received her M.D. in 1989. She completed the Primary Care Internal Medicine Residency Program at
Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School’s teaching affiliate, in 1992, and was board certified in internal medicine. Roubideaux earned her M.P.H. at Harvard’s School of Public Health in 1997.
After finishing her studies at Harvard, she worked for the Indian Health Service in Arizona, first as a medical officer at the
Hu Hu Kam Memorial Hospital on the Gila River Indian reservation for one year, followed by three years as a clinical director and medical officer at the San Carlos Indian Hospital on the San Carlos Apache Indian reservation
Roubideaux testified before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs regarding the Indian Health Care Improvement Act reauthorization, and in 2000 advised the CDC on health funding priorities for its first meeting of American Indian Governments and Organizations Budget Planning and Priorities. She was a consultant to the
National Indian Health Board and in 1998 she was one of the authors of the national survey of tribes, “Tribal Perspectives on Indian Self-Determination and Self-Governance in Health Care Management.”
She also served on President Barack Obama’s transition team.