Julianna Anelon: Integrating Traditional Medicine in Modern Care

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

After completing her training, Julianna now serves her community as a Tribal doctor at the Nilavena Regional Health Center, providing traditional healing services for customer-owners in the seven villages around Iliamna Lake. It has enabled her to form a much deeper connection with the people she serves. She provides services such as healing touch, healing hands, traditional counselling, 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.

Traditional healing is about more than healing the body; it’s about healing the whole person. In her role, Julianna forms relationships with customer-owners and supports them in various ways that go beyond physical wellness. She may talk with them and help them through difficult times, help them deal with sadness and grief and other emotions that may impact their health, and help them see their value to themselves and others when they may have trouble seeing that themselves.

This is what Julianna 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, is why I do this. I wanted to be able to provide a service to help my family and friends, but to our Elders as well.  Being able to love the people that helped me become who I am today, is healing me in return.   I get to help them, not only one-on-one 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.  We are all connected, everything is connected.”