The West Old & New Vol. III Issue II February 2014 | Page 20

Susie
Walking Bear
Yellowtail
First Native American Registered
Nurse in the United States

While working with the then Indian Health Service from 1929 to1931,
Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail helped to bring modern health care to
her own people and to end abuses in the Indian health care system, such
as the sterilization of Native American women without their consent.
She effectively communicated Native American culture and perspectives to non-Indians throughout the country then as well as throughout
her public service career.
From 1930 to 1960, the Montana nurse traveled throughout North American reservations to assess the health, social and
educational problems Native Americans faced. One of her assessment's revealed that acutely ill Native American children were literally dying on the backs of their mothers, who often had to walk 20 to 30 miles to get to one of the five
hospitals that served 160,000 Navajo. She also provided midwifery services to Native American and other women in
the Little Horn Valley for 30 years.
Through her work with the then Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the founder of the Native American
Nurses Association was instrumental in winning tribal and government funding to help Native Americans enter the
nursing profession. In 1962, Yellowtail received the President's Award for Outstanding Nursing Health Care.
Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail was born on January 27, 1903, near Pryor, to Walking Bear, a Crow and Jane White
Horse, a Sioux.