{"id":1338,"date":"2020-11-18T19:48:30","date_gmt":"2020-11-18T19:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/?p=1338"},"modified":"2025-10-02T17:16:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T17:16:23","slug":"the-trust-in-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/the-trust-in-care\/","title":{"rendered":"The trust in care"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Katy Nesbitt<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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As valedictorian of his high school, Mitchel Ornelas, \u201913, had his pick of Oregon colleges to attend on a full-ride scholarship. He chose EOU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now a doctor, he is drawing on his experience at EOU and his own upbringing in his work with underserved and Indigenous people in Seattle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He played football for the Mountaineers, but quit the team after a year to focus on academics and the cultural organizations in which he became involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With close family ties to the Umatilla Tribe, Ornelas was exposed to traditional foods, sweat lodge ceremonies and powwows during visits to Eastern Oregon. At EOU, he was drawn to the Pacific Island Heritage Club\u2019s luau that featured dances and performances\u2014traditions that rang true to him. He later discovered his father was from Southeast Asia.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI met a lot of people at Eastern and was introduced to island culture\u2014something brought me to them,\u201d Ornelas said. \u201cI realized this is my culture and I was meant to find my identity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His interest in heritage culture led Ornelas into activism. He attended leadership conferences focused on racial equality. In medical school, all of his experiences with culture and race paved the way to where he is now: a doctor of osteopathic medicine working for Swedish Health Services in Seattle with Alaskan natives and other Indigenous people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ornelas also credited cultural influences with his decision to practice osteopathic medicine, which focuses on muscular and skeletal systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt really ties in well with mind, body and spirit,\u201d Ornelas said.<\/p>\n\n\n

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After a year in the classroom, Ornelas spent three years training at community health centers, including one in Oahu, where he learned about yet another culture. The Hawaiian healers, who practiced in the room above Ornelas, sussed similar hands-on treatment as the osteopathic students learned and used plant and herbal treatments. The comprehensive health center also provided a place where families could work through social issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Hawaii, he also met medical providers with a bent for social justice. Ornelas said when he learned about the residency program at Swedish, he took the opportunity to come back to the Northwest to practice family medicine with Indigenous people, many of whom struggle economically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a resident entering a new career, he witnessed the COVID-19 pandemic putting even more pressure on traditionally marginalized communities. Ornelas said he serves people who are homeless, and most methods of treating patients from a safe distance, like tele-health, aren\u2019t available to people without a smartphone, computer or tablet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of the people I serve don\u2019t have a phone or other electronics and that\u2019s a barrier,\u201d Ornelas said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So is not having an address to receive letters from a healthcare provider. Sometimes one of the resources a patient may receive is a phone so they can make and keep appointments and communicate with clinics and hospitals.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cI think the COVID pandemic highlights what the barriers are in the population I serve,\u201d Ornelas said. \u201cPeople suffering from historical trauma find it tough to find providers they trust. Organizations like ours are trying to break down those barriers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To gain trust providers need to understand their patients\u2019 culture. Swedish offers both Western Medicine and traditional American Indian medicine, Ornelas said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTrust allows a relationship to develop,\u201d Ornelas said. \u201cThen we can work to avoid heart attacks and cardiac disease or focus on healthy pregnancies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Building relationships with people in need is the first step toward holistic healthcare, alumnus Mitchel Ornelas found.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":380,"featured_media":1340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,55],"tags":[25,56],"class_list":["post-1338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-stories","category-fall-2020","tag-athletics","tag-diversity"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/380"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1338"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2702,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338\/revisions\/2702"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}