Community education, LNI, steak&potatoes! Oh my!

Good evening ladies and gentlemen! This afternoon was chock full of Lakota Nation Invitational (LNI) festivities, an annual Native American high school basketball tournament in Rapid City. It's a pretty big deal... http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/lakota-nation-invitational-tips-off/article_ccaca822-25fe-11e1-a364-001871e3ce6c.html. Check it out!

During the LNI, a lot of teachers, parents, and other community members go to various educational sessions offered between games, and we were asked to participate as presenters—oh, the horror of public speaking (and the horror of being expected to be knowledgeable about medicine)!!! We split up into three groups, focusing on the following topics: alcohol/substance abuse/ASAP, diabetes/hypertension/Mission Nutrition, and mentoring/basic vitals (for the kids who were hanging out around the tournament). For the first two sessions, we spoke to groups of 15-20 adults, giving them a medical explanation of what goes wrong with the body in addiction and metabolic syndrome and how to help themselves and their loved ones avoid these problems. We also ran through the curricula we use in our Prtizker-run outreach programs on the South Side. The ASAP Program (Adolescent Substance Abuse Prevention Program) is an initiative in which we bring healthy and diseased organs to schools to let students see (and touch!) the effects of drugs and alcohol on our bodies. In Mission Nutrition, we teach kids about food groups, serving sizes, and the general awesomeness of fruits and veggies—with many snacks included of course. Being but humble medical students, it was nice to feel like we were able to actually give these community members some valuable and helpful information, and we learned a lot in return. We talked with them about the difficulties of teaching students with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, understanding the nutritional value of wild berries and buffalo meat, and dissecting the causes of esophageal varices. During these sessions, another inspiration-and-social-skill-filled team of MS14s did some mentoring with high school kids, talking with them about life in medical school, their goals in medicine and beyond, and how exactly to use a reflex hammer. Most excellent!

Diabetes/Hypertension/Mission Nutrition Talk

With our afternoon responsibilities safely behind us, we then went to the Rapid City Civic Center, where the LNI basketball action was taking place. Before the games started, the Lakota Sioux honored their female military veterans as well as several tribal members who have made great contributions to the community their female veterans.  There was also an opening ceremony and parade—called the Grand March—in which all of the high school basketball teams and cheerleaders gathered on the basketball court to kick off the competition. There was a lot of beautiful dancing and singing...see the photo and videos below!  It was really interesting to see the strong patriotism that everyone was showing in light of the really complicated and troubled history of the U.S. Government and the Lakota people. This is something we want to learn a lot more about over the course of the trip!

Native American Drummers at LNI Grand March

LNI Grand March Video

LNI Grand March

The day wrapped up with some serious business dinner provided by Dr. and Mrs. Statz, who are pretty much the greatest parents of all time. Steak and potatoes of epic tastiness and proportions—what else would you expect from the Statz family? Stay tuned for more adventures with Mount Rushmore and high school basketball tomorrow, our last full day in Rapid before we head to Pine Ridge!