Julianna Anelon: Integrating Traditional Medicine in Modern Care

Six years ago, Juliana Anelon had never imagined that she would become a Tribal doctor. At that time, she was working as a Community Health Aide/Practitioner in Iliamna, Alaska, and the surrounding area. As she says, “I’ve always had a yearning for my culture, our Yupik ways. A lot of the things that we do, the way that we live our life every day. It’s a part of traditional healing.” But it wasn’t until she saw a job opening for a Tribal doctor position at Southcentral Foundation that she realized it was something she could do.

After completing her training, Juliana now serves her community as a Tribal doctor at the Nilavena Regional Health Center, providing traditional healing services for customer-owners in the six villages around Iliamna Lake. Serving the community as a Tribal doctor has enabled her to form a much deeper connection with the people she serves. She provides services such as healing touch and healing hands, and teaches cultural classes for the community, but her work is as much about making a connection with customer-owners as it is anything else. As she tells the people she serves, “I’m not the healer.” Rather, the healing comes from God and from the customer-owners themselves.

For example, Juliana recalled a time when she was talking to a customer-owner who had a tragic change in their health. The customer-owner was no longer physically able to do the things that he used to love doing. He shared that he had been teaching a boy how to hunt, but he wasn’t able to show the boy what to do anymore and could only talk him through it. Juliana helped him see that his true gift was knowledge. She said, “You know you’re sharing your gift, your knowledge, the things that help to heal you, to another individual, another young man who has no idea that this could be his gift as well.” And she immediately noticed a change in the customer-owner. He looked lighter, more joyful, more aware that he still had a purpose and had value to others. Traditional healing is more than healing the body; it is about healing the whole person.

This is what Juliana loves about her job; being able to connect with her community and support others in achieving physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual wellness. As she says:

“I think taking care of the people that I love every single day, it’s why I do this. I wanted to be able to provide a service to not only my family and friends, but our Elders. Just being able to love the people that brought me up, I get to do that and it’s something that I love, not only that one-on-one time with the customer-owner but also teaching classes with young people. You know, there’s lots of ways to connect. I think that connection is just it. It’s all healing me in return.”