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came across an injured soldier who had a Native American medicine pouch around his neck under his shirt.
• "I told him I was Sioux. He said, 'You're Sioux?! Now I already feel better,'" Zephier recalled. "He wasn't even Sioux. He was Choctaw."

• Some ceremonies and traditions might seem odd to non-Natives, he added, such as the smudging of sage and sweet grass to purify the area around the patient. When a baby is born, Zephier's people believe that wiping out the newborn's mouth with sage can help the infant better transition from the spiritual realm of the womb.
• Some patients also wrap tobacco in cloths of red, black, yellow or white and hang them on their bedposts as prayer offerings.
• "It's for the spirits, or the angels, if you will, who are coming in to help heal," said Zephier, who grew up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where his uncle is a medicine man -- or intermediary between the spirit world and people.
• In addition to the healers, Sulik said the health system is hiring a cultural and di

versity specialist to understand and serve patients from a variety of cultural backgrounds.
• "We have several refugee communities in various areas that we live and there are certainly lots of cultural differences," Sulik said.
• Sulik, as part of being selected for a Bush Foundation Fellowship, will visit different communities all over the world over the next few years to see firsthand how some hospital systems are able to serve indigenous communities by blending western medicine with traditional healing.
• A similar initiative to blend western and traditional medicine started several years ago at Page Hospital in Page, Ariz., where up to 60 percent of the patients are Native Americans, including many Navajo Nation members. While the hospital doesn't employ traditional healers or medicine men on staff, medicine men do often come to the hospital to perform healing ceremonies or pray or bless the patient at the patient's request, said hospital CEO Sandy Haryasz.
• For example, Haryasz said, if a Native American woman who follows traditional beliefs plans to have a vaginal birth delivery but for some reason must have a C-section that is not an emergency, sometimes a mother would request a medicine man come to the hospital to bless her before the operation.
• "Our medical staff and nursing staff are extremely supportive of the spiritual side of the medicine men and healing ceremonies. They totally support patients' rights and respect their decision to have a medicine man come in," she said. "There's no issue between alternative medicine per se and traditional medicine."
• Zephier said he knows of few Native Americans who wouldn't accept prayers of

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