Growing up on the Omaha Reservation in northeast Nebraska, Roslyn Saunsoci had heard the name Susan La Flesche Picotte but knew nothing else. She grew excited upon learning in school that the famous tribal member was a doctor. The school day ended and soon her excitement exploded into near disbelief.

“I went home to share that with my grandmother and she was like, ‘Yeah, that was one of your great-grandmothers,’” Saunsoci recalled.

“I thought that was the coolest thing on Earth.” 

That connection to La Flesche Picotte, the first Native American in the U.S. to become a doctor, stayed with Saunsoci, ultimately inspiring her to become an emergency room nurse. 

She is not alone. More than 110 years after her death, La Flesche Picotte’s legacy is drawing a new wave of Native women in Nebraska into healthcare. And some are opting to keep their talents at home on the reservation. 

“It’s a big role,” said Ashleen Blackbird, another direct descendant of La Flesche Picotte who works as a nurse practitioner at Twelve Clans Unity Hospital in Winnebago — the same hospital where Saunsoci works. “In my lifetime, I have never seen another Indian provider working for my healthcare. It’s kind of unheard of in my community.”

In fact, it’s relatively unheard of everywhere. In 2024, 0.5% of nurses identified as Native American or Alaska Native, according to a survey conducted by two national nursing organizations. A similar gulf exists among doctors — and it doesn’t appear to be improving. Less than 1% of medical school enrollees in 2025 identified as American Indian or Alaska Native, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Representation in healthcare — or lack thereof — matters. Researchers have noted that diversity among practitioners can improve patient outcomes and reduce health disparities for minority groups.

A 2022 analysis of various health and socioeconomic measurements found wide disparities for American Indian and Alaska Native people compared to other groups. Specifically, Native people had a lower life expectancy at 70.6 years than most other groups, including Hispanics (78.8 years) and non-Hispanic whites (76.3 years). The researchers, whose study was published in the International Journal of Maternal and Child Health and AIDS, noted that Native communities “have a unique burden from historical, intergenerational trauma that affects physical and mental health and welfare.”

That reality helps make La Flesche Picotte’s story all the more stunning.

Longtime Nebraska journalist and retired professor Joe Starita literally wrote the book about her, “A Warrior of the People.” It details just how epic her journey into medicine was.

Born in a tipi near the end of the Civil War in the Nebraska Territory, he wrote, the future doctor was the child of Chief Joseph La Flesche (Iron Eye) and his wife Mary (One Woman). Joseph was the son of a Ponca woman and a wealthy French immigrant fur trader. While working for a French-American entrepreneur, La Flesche did business with the Omaha and was adopted by Chief Big Elk, who named him his successor.

The La Flesches were a locally powerful family – Iron Eye was the last recognized chief of the Omaha Tribe –  who believed in education and assimilation. 

Following the lead of Susette La Flesche, younger sisters Susan and Marguerite attended the private Elizabeth Institute for Young Ladies in New Jersey. Susette, commonly known as Bright Eyes, was a lecturer and activist famed for being the first Native American to actively stump for the political rights of Native people.

Marguerite became a teacher.

Struck by the poor conditions her people lived in and the adverse effects on their health, Susan strove to become a physician in an era when the medical field was nearly closed to women. At 24, she graduated valedictorian of her class from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, the first college in the world to grant women a medical degree.

In 1890, the year of the Wounded Knee Massacre, there were 104,805 doctors in the United States, Starita said. Only 4.4% were women. 

One was a Native American: Dr. Susan La Flesche.

“That is a remarkable story, and then there’s what she did with the rest of her life,”  Starita said.

Working up to 20-hour days, Starita said, La Flesche Picotte tended to Indian and non-Indian patients, caring for more than a thousand people across 450 square miles using a blend of Western and traditional Omaha medicine. She made house calls in all kinds of weather, riding horseback or driving a horse and buggy. She delivered babies, mended broken limbs and open wounds and treated illnesses such as tuberculosis, influenza, cholera and dysentery. As a public health reformer, she advocated for better hygiene and sanitation.

“She’s someone everybody looks up to on the reservation, especially young women. She definitely inspired me,” said Lily Phillips, a member of the Omaha Tribe who after studying at Southeast Community College is working full time as a dental assistant. She plans to apply to a dental hygienist program. 

“I always think about how she got past her troubles. I try to work around things how she did and it has worked for me.”

La Flesche Picotte has played an outsized role in inspiring people like Phillips and Saunsoci, who said “she was somebody always in the back of my mind.” But she is not the only source of inspiration. 

Saunsoci found inspiration in her older sister Maria Limon, who just became a licensed practical nurse after many years of considering and working toward a career in healthcare. “I just knew I wanted to apply myself somewhere in the community to help better it and I just kind of went for it,” said the younger sister, who ultimately got there first — Saunsoci graduated from Clarkson College in 2021.

Another source of inspiration for Saunsoci: Blackbird and her husband, who also is Native and works in healthcare. Blackbird herself felt inspired by a relative fewer generations removed than La Flesche Picotte. Blackbird’s grandmother, Wehnona Stabler, served as the CEO of the Carl T. Curtis Health Education Center in Macy.

“Growing up, I wanted to be just like her,” she said. “Everybody knew her, she had good charisma, her energy was so infectious. You watched her be a leader, she meant business, everyone respected her.”

Blackbird earned a degree in healthcare administration and policy from Creighton University. Then, with La Flesche Picotte in mind, she earned nursing degrees from Morningside University. Her younger brother Ashton Marr will graduate with a nursing degree this year.

“I can’t say it was all because of Dr. Susan, but definitely there was a role she filled in my life,” Blackbird said. “I just feel it was a calling I wanted to do, and I’m very lucky to have an ancestral tie to one of the most important Native American women ever.”

Another difference maker has been the Chief Standing Bear Journey for Justice Scholarship. Started by Starita, who also wrote about the iconic Ponca chief, the scholarship has helped nearly 200 Native American students continue their education, he said.

“What’s also been heartwarming is the number of girls we’ve given scholarships to in the last 10 years whose idol is Susan La Flesche,” Starita said. “They’re going to Clarkson nursing college in Omaha and to nursing colleges in Iowa and South Dakota. They are coming back to the reservation because of what Susan did, and Susan’s their hero.”

Recipients include Phillips and Saunsoci. “Roslyn became valedictorian of her class and wanted to follow in Susan’s footsteps, and she has done exactly that. I mean, c’mon, it doesn't get any better than that,” Starita said. 

Younger healthcare professionals like Saunsoci are not the only ones who draw inspiration from La Flesche Picotte.

The University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Dr. Siobhan Wescott regularly thinks about the trailblazing doctor and all she had to overcome. 

“Whenever I get bad news in academia, I get told, ‘Why aren’t you upset?’ and I’m like, ‘It’s not like I’m Dr. Susan trying to get through two feet of snow to reach a patient two days away.’” 

Wescott, who serves as the Dr. Susan and Suzette La Flesche Professor of American Indian Health, has had to overcome her own challenges as an Native physician — growing up in a small, remote cabin in Alaska with no indoor plumbing before attending two Ivy League schools where she endured being  “belittled” in a “toxic environment.”

“The odds were against me in our time,” she said, “and I can’t even imagine how much worse it was for her.  … She faced ridiculous odds and blew through all of them.”

Knowing La Flesche Picotte’s story helps when navigating what is still a challenging field, Blackbird said. The economic and health disparities evident in Native communities across the country show up at Twelve Clans Unity Hospital. It is not an easy place to work, Blackbird said, but she feels privileged to be able to give back to her community. And she is proud that she is not the only one.

“Nobody would know, as outsiders looking in, how difficult life really is on a reservation,” Blackbird said. “To be Indian and to overcome those obstacles is so rewarding, especially now with younger generations stepping up taking leadership roles. It just makes my heart burst. I know Dr. Susan would be so proud of that.”

This story was originally published by Flatwater Free Press, an independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories in Nebraska that matter. Read the article at: https://flatwaterfreepress.org/women-following-in-the-footsteps-of-dr-susan-continue-native-healthcare-legacy/