1 of the finest achievements of Cherokee Nation has been constructing the largest wellbeing treatment procedure in Indian Country. Our environment-course facilities receive much more than 1.5 million affected person visits just about every 12 months, and we have strategically constructed health and fitness facilities all around our 7,000-square-mile reservation so that no Cherokee on the reservation is much more than 30 minutes absent from treatment.
However, the greatest amenities can do us no great if they are not filled with caring, really skilled, culturally knowledgeable doctors, nurses, medical doctor assistants and other health treatment staff members. To enable meet up with our workforce desires, we associate with the Health and fitness Assets and Services Administration, a federal agency that focuses on education health and fitness pros and improving entry to wellness providers, especially in rural communities and other large-need to have regions.
In 2021, HRSA founded the Tribal Advisory Council to be a forum for tribally elected leaders and HRSA team to collaborate on improving health in Indian Nation. I symbolize the Oklahoma area on the HRSA TAC and was elected as its to start with chair. Not long ago, we hosted a conference of the TAC in our cash of Tahlequah.
Around two times, other tribal leaders on the TAC and I talked over Native well being troubles with HRSA leadership, which include the health workforce, maternal and kid wellness, rural health and fitness plan, and far more. We heard about courses by our neighbor tribes, including the Chickasaw Nation pediatric mental wellness care program and the Choctaw Country rural opioid response software.
We also brought in leaders from the OSU Faculty of Osteopathic Drugs at Cherokee Country to go over what we are carrying out with a HRSA grant to fund medical residencies in tribal facilities. We developed this health-related school in Tahlequah, the 1st and only tribally affiliated medical university in the U.S., since we know that medical practitioners are likely to commit their professions inside of 90 miles of the place they comprehensive their residencies.
The initially course of 54 students started in tumble 2020 and will be graduating in May possibly 2024. For the up coming stage in their professions, these learners will start out residencies at different hospitals and clinics. We are hopeful that lots of will remain inside Cherokee Country, no matter if at our tribal facilities or at other hospitals and