KAREN: I would assume most of the doctors are from Outside and aren't from here, and there are cultural issues that you've had to deal with with them?

JESSIE: Yes.

KAREN: And teaching them about your culture so they could work together better?

JESSIE: They learn from coming into the villages.  Like every other month now.  They get to know a different -- They get to know quite a bit from coming into the village every other month.

KAREN: What about when you first started?

JESSIE: I had a good -- Thank goodness he was a nice doctor. I remember his name even.

KAREN: What was his name?

JESSIE: Doctor Franks. Doctor Hood Franks.  He was a good doctor. He was a patient man. To teach us what he wanted to know. I've been through so many doctors. I said, I've been through so many doctors, supervisors, health aides.

Some health aides I hate to see go because they're good health aides.  They're good at their job. But the pressure of it would just get to be a little too much.  The on-call issue is, I think, a big factor in a lot of the --   The problem where they lose some of the health aides because of the on-call issue.

KAREN: When you first started, you were on-call all the time, huh?

JESSIE: Between Barbara (Johnson) and I, yes. We'd take a week at a time. Her and I. She'd be on-call one week and I'd be on-call the next week.  We'd trade off weeks.  And we went right on-call.  Now they at least wait until they finish session two.

KAREN: Oh, of their training?

JESSIE: Uh, huh. I think it's better. Work them into it.

KAREN: First day on the job you could have been on-call?

JESSIE: Hm, mm. It is kind of hard on our families, too.  It is a demanding job.  Before we had a clinic, we had to do a lot of house calls. I remember one time my husband getting mad at me for going out, just to take a sliver out of some guy's hand. “You shouldn't have to do that,” he said. When I first started I felt like I had to do everything people wanted me to do.

KAREN: And then that changed?

JESSIE: Hm, mm, you have to. Now they have a radio you call. In Angoon it's 32377883237.  They'll answer the phone, “This is the emergency line. What is your emergency?”

KAREN: And then they decide whether it's --

JESSIE: -- an emergency enough to be seen, yes.

KAREN: -- and to call the health aide in. Before they just called you directly?

JESSIE: Yes. Come and check this out.  Where we've had to teach people that you don't have to call for an ear ache, for a tooth ache, for a sore throat.  Teach them what to call for, anyway.  Like a baby with a high temperature is a high priority, and an elder. We do a lot of Patient Ed (education) now.