Nolita Madros

Nolita Madros is Koyukon Athabascan and was born on May 3, 1963 to Anna and George Madros, Sr. in Kaltag, Alaska. Her father was a carpenter and her was a community health aide. Nolita grew up watching her mother work on patients in their home, at other people's houses and knew the amount of work that was involved with being a health aide. She remembers the little cabinet in her house that was full of the medicine her mother used to treat patients. Nolita started out working as a carpenter (eventually working with her father), but after she had her son she could not go out on crew anymore. In 1992, she became a community health representative (CHR) in Huslia, Alaska for Tanana Chiefs Conference. After a few years, she became a community health practitioner (CHP) in the village of Ruby and began her training. She spent six years in Ruby before becoming an itinerant health aide in 1999 for the North Slope Borough. She traveled to all the villages of the North Slope to provide medical care and host specialized clinics. In 2004, she went to Anaktuvuk Pass as an itinerant, and ended up staying there to become their regular health aide. When the clinic building was being renovated, she based the clinic out of her home for about eleven months. In comparison, the three exam rooms of the new clinic seemed so spacious.