TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – Native people are among the underrepresented groups in medicine nationwide, but efforts in Oklahoma are working to change who enters the profession and who ultimately returns to care for Native communities.
At the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, American Indian students make up 12% of the College of Osteopathic Medicine’s student population, compared to a national average of 1%, according to the university’s 2026 Tribal Impact Report.
That representation is even higher at OSU College of Osteopathic Medicine at the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah, where 18.3% of students identify as American Indian. At OSU-COM’s Tulsa campus, that figure is 9.1%.
For Jacque Hensley (Kaw/Cherokee), director of OSU’s Office of American Indians in Medicine and Science, those numbers represent years of work building a pathway for Native students interested in medicine.
The AIMS office works with students beginning in middle and high school and continues through undergraduate and medical education. Hensley said outreach is intended to give young Native students an opportunity to explore medicine and envision themselves becoming physicians.
Dr. Douglas Nolan, associate dean of Tribal Health Affairs at OSU, said seeing someone with a similar background already working in medicine can make that path feel possible.
“There is some truth that you need to see someone that’s like you to understand, ‘I can do that as well,’” Nolan said.
That was not something Dr. Joshua Autaubo (Mvskoke) had growing up.
Autaubo, an OSU-COM graduate and emergency medicine resident with the University of Oklahoma School of Community Medicine, said he had little exposure to Native physicians as a child.
“Growing up, I honestly did not really have any exposure to any Native Americans practicing medicine,” Autaubo said.
As a first-generation physician, Autaubo said one of his biggest challenges was figuring out the process himself, from becoming a competitive medical school applicant to navigating the steps necessary to enter the profession.
Dr. Mariah West (Mvskoke) had a similar experience. West, also an OSU graduate, said she was primarily surrounded by non-Native health professionals while growing up. Today, she practices primary care for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation at Council Oak Comprehensive Healthcare in Tulsa.
West said OSU was her first opportunity to regularly be around other Native professionals. The support she received from faculty and fellow students eventually encouraged her to offer the same support to others.
“That support system drives you to continue working hard so that you can be that for someone else someday,” West said.
Creating that cycle is one of the goals behind OSU’s efforts to increase Native representation.
OSU partnered with the Cherokee Nation to establish OSU-COM at the Cherokee Nation, the country’s first Tribally affiliated medical school. The Tahlequah campus provides one example of tribes becoming directly involved in educating the physicians who may eventually serve Native and rural communities.
That effort continues beyond the classroom. Through OSU’s Tribal Medical Track, third and fourth-year medical students can complete rotations within Tribal health systems. Nolan said OSU has worked with approximately 30 Tribal health clinics to provide those opportunities.
The goal is not simply to educate Native physicians, Nolan said, but to create pathways for them to return to their communities.
Nolan said relationships and communication between physicians and patients can influence trust and a patient’s willingness to discuss difficult issues. Native physicians, he said, may have an easier time establishing that relationship with Native patients because of shared experiences or cultural understanding.
Autaubo has experienced that firsthand while working shifts at the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Medical Center in Okmulgee. He said patients sometimes recognize his family name and realize they share connections within the community.
“They just sometimes feel more comfortable,” Autaubo said. “A lot of times I’ll run into family members out there, and they’re like, ‘Oh, hey, we’re kinfolk.’”
For Autaubo, those encounters mean he is now providing care in the same community that helped shape him.
Hensley said that cultural familiarity can allow Native patients to discuss aspects of their lives that might otherwise be difficult to explain. She recalled her grandfather, a member of the Native American Church, receiving care at Claremore Indian Hospital and not feeling able to discuss traditional practices with a non-Native physician.
“It would have been such a benefit for him and others when you can go, and somebody understands what you’re saying,” Hensley said.
Increasing representation, however, also means addressing the obstacles Native students encounter before becoming physicians.
West identified finances as one of those barriers. She said that assistance from the Indian Health Service and the MCN made it possible for her to pursue medical school.
Other barriers can begin much earlier. Students may be the first in their families to attend college or pursue medicine, and may have no one close to them who understands medical school admissions, residency applications, or the profession itself.
OSU’s AIMS program attempts to fill some of those gaps through outreach, mentoring, pre-admission programming, and support throughout medical school. Native students at OSU-CHS currently represent 10 Tribal nations, according to the 2026 Tribal Impact Report.
Hensley said increasing representation should ultimately extend beyond physicians to nurses and other health professionals. Nolan agreed, pointing to everyone from laboratory technicians to phlebotomists as part of building a workforce invested in the communities it serves.
For West, part of continuing that progress is making herself available to Native students coming behind her.
Her advice to a young Native person wondering whether medicine is attainable is simple.
“Come hang out with me,” West said. “Come hang out, learn the process, and just fall in love with it.”
