National Children’s Study Federal Advisory Committee Member
Dr. Rhoades is a member of the Kiowa Tribe, and was the first American Indian Director of the Indian Health Service (IHS), a program of preventive, curative, and community care for approximately one and a half million American Indians and Alaska Natives through 50 hospitals and several hundred clinics throughout the United States, employing approximately 14,000 persons. In 1988, he guided the IHS from a bureau within the Health Resources and Services Administration to one of largest of seven agencies of the U.S. Public Health Service.
His experience in a wide array of Indian affairs includes serving on the Kiowa Tribal Council, the Task Force on Health of the American Indian Policy Review Commission, and the Association of American Indian Physicians. As the Director of Education Initiatives at the Center for American Indian and Alaska Native Health at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, he established a graduate course: “The Health of American Indian and Alaska Natives” and edited the text, American Indian Health – Innovations in Health Care, Promotion and Policy, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. He presently serves as President of the Board of the Oklahoma City Indian Clinic.
Dr. Rhoades has held numerous positions at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, including Associate Dean for Community Affairs, Professor of Medicine, and Director of the Native American Prevention Research Center. Currently, he is Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. He is also Senior Consultant to the Center for American Indian Health Research of the University of Oklahoma College of Public Health and an investigator with the Strong Heart Study, a prospective multicenter study of cardiovascular diseases among 13 separate American Indian Tribes.