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The mission of the AIMES Alliance is to advance American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) access to care, reduce physician shortages, and expand opportunities for training physicians to benefit communities by collaboratively advancing federal and Tribal solutions that expand graduate medical education in Tribal communities through communications, outreach, and policy development.
The American Indian Medical Education Strategies (AIMES) Alliance envisions an environment where urban and rural Tribal members benefit from access to fully staffed medical facilities filled with physicians who provide high-quality and culturally appropriate care and invest in the communities they serve.
The Alliance also envisions a medical education and training environment where allopathic and osteopathic physicians have extensive opportunities to benefit communities and further their education and training in urban and rural Indian Health Service, Tribal-administered, and other Indigenous clinics and facilities.
Collaboratively advancing federal and Tribal solutions that expand GME opportunities in Indian Country through communications, outreach, and policy development.
Dr. Donald Warne
(Oglala Lakota)
Convener
MD, Stanford University
MPH, Harvard University
Dr. Donald Warne leads the AIMES Alliance as its Convener. Currently serving as the Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health, he is an acclaimed physician, one of the world’s preeminent scholars in Indigenous health, health education, policy and equity as well as a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe from Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Dr. Warne will also serve as Johns Hopkins University’s new Provost Fellow for Indigenous Health Policy. Dr. Warne comes from a long line of traditional healers and medicine men, and is a celebrated researcher of chronic health inequities. He is also an educational leader who created the first Indigenous health-focused Master of Public Health and PhD programs in the U.S. or Canada at the North Dakota State University and the University of North Dakota, respectively. Dr. Warne previously served at the University of North Dakota as professor of Family and Community Medicine and associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as director of the Indians Into Medicine and Public Health programs at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences.
Dr. Michael Toedt
Senior Advisor
MD, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
Dr. Michael Toedt serves as the Alliance’s Senior Advisor and is the founder and CEO of Toedt Health Solutions. He is an NC-licensed and board-certified family physician and the former Chief Medical Officer of the Indian Health Service (IHS), as well as the Chief Medical Informatics Officer (CMIO) for the Agency. Dr. Toedt is a retired Rear Admiral with over 30 years experience as a physician executive, public health expert, health information and technology expert, and Flag officer in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. As a graduate of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Dr. Toedt has first-hand experience serving in IHS, Tribal, DoD and VA health care facilities, and he has served on numerous committees of HHS, DoD, and VA. He has extensive experience in working with local, regional, Tribal, state, and federal government with an emphasis on eliminating health inequity and improving health outcomes for vulnerable and underserved populations.
