Day 2: Museum of Appalacia

As we are making our way south to North Carolina, one of the stops we made to help enhance our learning experience was to visit the Museum of Appalachia. The museum had SO many things that are memorable to the Appalachian culture, everything from farming tools to 34.5” wide sawmill blades, and a shocking amount of history in medicine. What I found most interesting was that the museum does not show anything about the history of nursing. I discussed this with my instructor, and we believe this may be because nursing wasn’t known to really be a career til about the 1940s, and even then nursing wasn’t as prestigious as it is today.

Another part of the museum that caught my attention was how medicine was practiced in these communities back before hospitals began to grow. Dr. Andy Osborne of Blackwater, Virginia would travel extensive distances by horse to visit his patients, and would even fall asleep in the saddle as he would be returning home. Luckily, his horse was so well-trained that it would know the trail back home then would nudge Dr. Osborne awake once they arrived. There were several other doctors that were displayed in the museum along with their tools and kits, and there was one commonality I noticed all of them: they would all travel distances to care for the ill.

As I was reading the history of these physicians and how they would go visit the patients’ homes, I began to ponder more about how this relates closely to the lack of access to healthcare that now exists many decades later. Over the years, hospitals were planted, the nursing profession began and grow, health insurance starting to take place rather than paying in cash, and health policies were initiated. Therefore, I believe what happened is healthcare became centralized to hospitals, decreasing the number of individuals getting any sort of medical care, which then caused the amount of disparities that are occurring in these rural cultures now.

Along with healthcare becoming centralized only into certain areas, I have noticed that the biggest difference between central Illinois and these rural areas is the amount of technology that they have and use. Right at our fingertips we have all of the knowledge we could ever want about our bodies and what we should do about it, of course also (most of the time) knowing when we should go to the ER, schedule a visit with our doctor, or just buy over the counter medicine. Here in the Appalachians, not only is it common for the ill to not be able to reach proper treatment, but it becomes a little more difficult to know where to go and how to get the help they need.

Something that the Cherokee does have that I personally have a huge respect for is how much they adhere to their core values. It seems that the Cherokee highly value character, honesty, respect, trust, courage, and many other personal qualities that are foundational to who we are. I have high respect that they adhere to these traits that they look for in people because these are things that seem to be proven in more than just one situation, whereas in our urban culture, it appears that people make very quick assumptions just based off of one instance, which can cause trouble.

Overall, I find it so wild how quickly we can learn about different cultures, and I am already starting to see my mindset change on why we would accommodate different belief systems while they are being cared for by us. I’m definitely excited to see more of what sort of treatment that the Cherokees would allow if they were to end up in a hospital like UnityPoint, or of course what the Cherokees do not allow. I hope that once I finish this course, I would know exactly how to approach someone that is Cherokee if I end up being a nurse for one someday and know what questions I would ask them. One thing I also want to point out is that I am incredibly grateful for my academic history in psychology, because it has taught me a lot about how stereotypes, biases, or prejudices take place, and how I can personally set them aside for just about anything. With a large background in that area of psychology and the wisdom I have gained from my professors, I luckily do not have any stereotypes or anything of that sort toward the Cherokee culture, and I can’t wait to continue learning about their way of living as I experience it first-hand.