Indigenous and Rural Health Program

Lisa Spellman, left, program manager with the Indigenous and Rural Health Program, accompanies Dr. Denise Waterfield across the powwow grounds at the Omaha Tribe’s annual Hede’wache in Macy, NE.

The Indigenous and Rural Health Program celebrated the introduction of Denise Waterfield, PhD, PMHNP-BC, AGACNP-BC, a nurse practitioner specializing in psychiatry, behavioral health and substance use treatment at the Omaha Tribe’s annual Hede’wache. 

An assistant professor in the UNMC College of Nursing, Dr. Waterfield owns and operates Waterfield Health, based in Kearney, NE and will be expanding to provide services at the Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte Center in Walthill, NE on the Omaha Indian Reservation. 

The Indigenous and Rural Health Program spearheaded this effort in collaboration with the Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte Center, Carl T. Curtis Health Center and the UNMC College of Nursing.

Mariah Abney, Lisa Spellman and Siobhan Wescott, MD, MPH.

The Indigenous and Rural Health Program supports both tribal and urban American Indian and Alaska Native communities by promoting ways of knowing, being and doing that align with indigenous knowledge, practices and approaches to health and wellness.

This initiative is committed to supporting the revitalization of American Indian and Alaska Native public health through culturally relevant and innovative practice, research, teaching and service that:

• Honors indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing to develop deeper understandings of indigenous health.
• Builds respectful intercultural, intergenerational and interdisciplinary relationships that support and promote public health, the medical humanities and innovations in health.
• Generates culturally grounded knowledge, curriculum, models, tools and practices that tribal and urban American Indian and Alaska Native communities can employ in health promotion and preventive and societal medicine.