Ameil “Doc” Redfish has lived a good and honorable life already, and is still going strong as mayor of Arlington, and as a “semi-retired” PA, who still seems to be working long hours.
It has been such an “honor-able” life, as a matter of fact, that he has been cleaning up on honors of late, with people and organizations able to honor him in what seems to be monthly “Docapalooza” recognition events.
Saturday night, it was the South Dakota Hall of Fame calling on Redfish, adding him to their ranks. At the same time, the Sioux Tribes of South Dakota honored him with a Morning Star quilt – one of the highest honors conferred in the Sioux Nation.
No one is more worthy. But at this rate, Doc’s going to have to add a room to his house.
Ameil “Doc” Redfish has received a lot of awards over the years, from the National Rural PA of the Year award in 1998 to his latest, Distinguished PA of the Year award given in April by the SD Academy of Physicians Assistants.
But being inducted into the SD Hall of Fame last weekend in Oacoma was still a singular honor.
“I am deeply humbled to be accorded this honor,” he said in his acceptance speech. “With this you honor a true South Dakotan.
“The first white woman born in Dakota Territory is my grandmother, and my ancestors Crazy Horse, Spotted Tail and Chief Redfish are on that side.
“The first surveyor of the Dakota Territory when it became the state of South Dakota was my grandfather. The first teacher in Beresford, SD. was my grandmother.
 “My mother spent 50 years educating youths. My earliest years were in the Catholic mission schools, and I graduated from Pine Ridge High School.
“They taught me three things: one, to read; two, to do math and three, a strong sense of history. With those, and an attitude that if someone wrote a book about it, I can do it, I went forth in my dream to do something in medicine.
“And then I found I was lacking one thing – I didn’t have any money. But I persevered, and due to a lot of people who accorded me opportunity, I worked my way through.
“So for tha last 37 years I have practiced medicine, and I’ve been in medicine for 48 years now, practicing from Arizona, to Nevada to the jungles of Los Angeles.
“But I always ended up coming home to South Dakota. I worked for ten years in the Rosebud Reservation, and came to the small town of Arlington in 1989.
“They had been without a medical practitioner for some time, and so for the next 22 years, that is what I did. The adventures that I had in that were great, and I have many fond memories.
“It has been a great journey. I started out from the little district of Corn Creek, Black Pipe on the Rosebud Reservation. My very first memory of a home is of a log cabin with a dirt floor.
“But we kept going. I went into medicine, and about ten years ago, a committee from the town asked me if I would consider running for mayor. It’s been 10 years and it has been very rewarding.
“My time’s about up now, although I could talk another 35 –hours—but it’s time to wind it up. From deep within Ameil Narcelle Redfish, let me say this: ‘Pilamaya ye.’ Thank you very much.”
Source: Arlington Newspaper
Amiel N. Redfish
Amiel Narcell “Doc” Redfish a member of the Sicangu Lakota was born Dec. 28, 1942 in Ponca City, Okla., where his mother lived with her parents during World War II, as his father was overseas fighting the war. His mother was a teacher, and he spent the school year on the Rosebud reservation, returning to Oklahoma in the summers until WW II was over.
His formal education was at St. Francis Indian School, Marty Indian School and Oglala Community School where he graduated from high school.
His paternal grandmother was an herbal healer, and as a boy, Amiel learned some of the natural remedies for common complaints from her, and was set on a career in medicine early on but such aspirations were difficult to achieve without financial backing, and after several semesters of college he managed a position as a special chemistry lab tech at a hospital in Rapid City in 1965. That started a career in medicine that has now spanned 46 years, and continues.
He soon found himself employed by the Indian Health Services, and it didn’t take long for him to discover the field needed someone to take x-rays as much as they needed a lab tech. So, he enrolled at UCLA in 1987 to study to be a radiology technologist. He took x-rays and was a chief technologist for seven years, but soon found himself wanting to do more.
At the time, it was becoming more and more apparent that the old model, with every small town employing its own doctor, was fading. And so, Amiel enrolled in a new medical field of study within the Indian Health Service – the Community Health Medic. The Community Health Medics became Physician Assistants. The Physician Assistant programs were a huge success, because it filled a need in the Nation.
Amiel Narcelle Redfish became a pioneering Physician Assistant in South Dakota and took a position back at Indian Health Services, working on the Rosebud reservation, then for a short time in Arizona. And, then moved to a reservation based Community Health Center, which closed in 1989, leaving Doc out of a job. But that wasn’t as bad as it sounded, as the intervening 15 years since 1974 had made it clear that Physician Assistants were more necessary than ever.
Indeed, there were 26 Physician Assistant openings available across the state in 1989, so Redfish could pick and choose from an abundance of positions. He landed in Arlington and Kingsbury County which had just seen the end of more than a century of small town doctors. Arlington needed a medicine man, and Amiel Redfish was that man. That started a 21 year career as Arlington’s PA, which continued until his semi-retirement in May 2010. In the course of those two decades, he was recognized several times for his medical skills, winning the SD PA of the Year honor in 1996, the Doc Hayes award for South Dakota Rural Medical Practitioner of the Year in 1997, then being named the National Rural PA of the year in 1998, the lifetime Distinguished Service Award from the South Dakota Academy of Physician Assistants in 2011, and the Veterans Caucus of the American Academy of Physician Assistants in 2011. During his Physician Assistant career he was a founding member or the South Dakota Academy of Physician Assistants and served in a variety of positions.
Over the years he also made himself invaluable to the communities that he served, serving on the school board, organizational boards in a variety of positions, before finding himself elected as Mayor in 2000. He still serves in that position, having helped guide the city for 11 years and counting, and during this time Arlington was named the Governor’s Community of the Year. He must be doing a good Job, as he seems to have life tenure as Mayor, having gone unchallenged in elections in the last 10 years. And over that time Arlington has become his home.
His is preceded into the Hall of Fame by his great grandfather, Narcisse Narcelle, who was inducted in 1990.
His life and career can be summarized by the wording on one of the plaques that he received. “For his Caring and giving ways and his selfless dedication towards those he continues to care for. He lives to give.”
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