Senate Unanimously Approves Roubideaux as IHS Director
The U.S. Senate on Wednesday unanimously approved Yvette Roubideaux, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona's College of Medicine, as director of Indian Health Service, the Arizona Daily Star reports. Roubideaux will be charged with overseeing HHS' efforts to improve health care for American Indians (Arizona Daily Star, 5/8).
Roubideaux, a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe, has worked for IHS in the past as a medical officer and clinical director on the San Carlos Indian Reservation and in the Gila River Indian community. She also is the co-director of an effort that provides diabetes and cardiovascular disease prevention programming to 66 American Indian/Alaska Native communities (Kaiser Health Disparities Report, 3/24).
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who also was confirmed on Wednesday, said,
"Dr. Roubideaux has spent her life working to improve health care for Native Americans. She has seen [IHS] through the eyes of a patient and a doctor, and I know she is the leader we need to strengthen IHS and ensure we keep our promise to provide quality health care to Native Americans" (Rapid City Journal, 5/7).