Many of our senior residents have rotated at multiple sites on the Navajo Reservation including Chinle, Arizona, Tuba City, Arizona, and Shiprock, New Mexico. Navajo Nation is the largest Native American Reservation in the country and provides a rural global health experience without having to travel internationally. Residents will have clinical experiences focused in the outpatient setting, with additional opportunities in the nursery and inpatient pediatric ward. Additionally, residents will have time to explore important public health and community experiences including community health nursing, mobile health units, school clinics, 
Native medicine, and various cultural activities. Additionally, the southwest region provides different adventures at National and State Parks for residents to explore. UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh residents are grateful and humbled to be guests on sacred land to partner with these specific communities and the Indian Health Service.
Jillian Mador, M.D. (UPMC Children's Hospital Residency graduate 2018, former Chief Resident) rotated in Tuba City during her third year of residency and started as an attending in Chinle in 2019. “Having the opportunity to rotate on Navajo as a resident opened my eyes to the excitement of rural medicine, enough that I made a huge career change based on my experience! I love that I am able to be a true general pediatrician out here, applying so much of my breadth of training from CHP Residency to my work here because of our rural setting. It is incredibly satisfying to be the pediatrician with a family from the delivery room, to the well checks, to the inpatient unit. Learning more about the history of these sacred tribal lands and the Navajo people and seeing how it interplays with the health of the community we serve is a humbling but important part of our work here as providers.