Dr. Yvette Roubideaux Nominated to Head Indian Health Service

President Obama has nominated Dr. Yvette Roubideaux, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family & Community Medicine at The University of Arizona College of Medicine, to head the  Indian Health Service.

If approved by the Senate, Roubideaux will oversee an IHS budget of more than $3 billion dollars plus $500 million from the stimulus package. She'll also have the opportunity to spearhead the passage of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, a bill she testified on nine years ago, but has yet to see enacted. 

Roubideaux previously worked in the Indian Health Service as a Medical Officer and Clinical Director on the San Carlos Indian Reservation and in the Gila River Indian Community.   She has conducted extensive research on American Indian health issues, with a focus on diabetes in American Indians/Alaska Natives and American Indian health policy.

Roubideaux, 46, is a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe. She received her MD from Harvard Medical School and her MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Roubideaux is not allowed to give interviews during the confirmation process, but you can gain some additional insight on her from this profile in the Changing the Face of Medicine online exhibit from the National Institutes of Health  and from her May 10, 2000, testimony before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee on the Reauthorization of the Health Care Improvement Act.