Michael Shackelford BSN, RN, of Hominy District, received the IHS Director’s Award at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Md., on Friday, Dec. 8 at a ceremony that gathered professionals from the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Indian Health Service (IHS). Shackelford’s work updating healthcare worker vaccines garnered the award, which he has received in the past when he worked at the Pawhuska Indian Health Center in 2014.
The Director’s Award recognizes service that has significantly advanced the IHS mission and vision, through “work focused on the goals and objectives in the IHS strategic plan, access, quality and management of operations with particular emphasis on quality improvement activities.” The IHS mission is “to raise the physical, mental, social, and spiritual health of American Indians and Alaska Natives to the highest level.”
Currently employed at the Pawnee Indian Health Center as the employee health nurse, Shackelford’s latest recognition came after he brought the Pawnee Indian Health Center’s employee vaccination rate for the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine from 75 percent up to 99 percent. He describes his current role, and the work for which he received the award, as focused on employee wellness.
“Like any organization,” he said, “the organization and the care it provides are only as good as the employees that are there. So, you have to take care of your employees to make sure that they are in the best shape they are in. Being in employee health, my job is to ensure that the employees have their vaccinations updated. The award was for the improvement project that I did—’quality improvement activities’ is what they call it—and it was when COVID was at its peak.”
“I was going through all the employees’ charts and I started noticing that there were people who didn’t have the adequate amount of the Measles, Mumps, [and Rubella] MMR [vaccination] that are required. Because that vaccination requirement changed from one to two shots over time. So I got approval through my supervisor and made sure we got everyone vaccinated. … it protects everybody,” said Shackelford.
For the Maryland ceremony, he traveled with his wife Shannon, and after the awards ceremony, the couple also took time to visit both the Capitol in Washington, D.C. and their son Hud Oberly, who lives nearby in New York City. “It was a fun time,” he said, remarking on the massiveness of both the building where he received the award—the Natcher Building in Bethesda which has top-level security—and the buildings he and his wife saw on their travels. “The whole experience was just amazing.”
Of the 99 percent vaccination rate, he noted that the rate would have been 100 percent, but the Pawnee Indian Health Center (PIHC) hired a new employee on December 15, just before the data was taken. The new hire did not have their MMR up-to-date. “It would have been 100 percent,” he said with a laugh.
The process of getting his staff fully vaccinated required communications with employees, and some education on why the vaccine was necessary. “I monitored multiple vaccination numbers,” he said, in describing his process in improving the PIHC vaccination rate. Among his findings while monitoring was that one of the biggest barriers to vaccinating the public with the flu, COVID, and tetanus is a simple nationwide aversion to shots. “When I presented it to people that [the vaccination] was required [for employment] … that held a lot of weight. I sent out letter, after letter, after letter. … and the other option was they could go get blood drawn, and if the [blood test] says you are immune, you don’t have to get your vaccination.”

Shackelford began his work in health care with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Oklahoma’s Health Sciences Center College of Nursing in 1994. He was inspired to enter health care because he wanted to better the poor services and health care access that he saw growing up in the Osage. “In the fifties and the sixties, the health care was nothing like it is now. IHS didn’t have much of a clinic. We would go to where the Welcome Center is now. There used to be government housing all in there, and some of those were turned into clinics. The first Pawhuska clinic was a little bitty building that was behind the superintendents’ house. … So, I got to see how the health care was as a Native American viewpoint,” he said.
In the past, Native people in Osage County were forced to go to the private sector when they were sick, even if they did not have health care through jobs, or otherwise. He was not impressed with the paltry health care offered to Native people, and he wanted to do more to take care of his people. “Being raised in a Native American home, where you think about others, and you care for them, that whole attitude was ingrained in me,” said Shackelford. After college, he turned down two job offers from Oklahoma City hospitals and instead pursued a grant-funded position to improve the state of health care in the Osage. He applied for and then received a job at the newly created Osage Rural Health Outreach, where his role was to get a new practice running.
“We started off with nothing. I wrote the policies and procedures … [did] the Medicare audits and all that stuff, and hired staff, and we worked in various buildings around the campus and in Pawhuska and did that for five years.” Shackelford has seen Osage access to health care go from minimal services focused on vaccinations to wraparound services. He also worked for Osage Home Health, which was a developing area of care at the time he was starting his career.
Of the significance of home health visits, Shackelford said, “With an aging population, if someone was elderly and sick, it’s not just the health care, but it’s the socialization. When somebody is a shut-in, they don’t have anybody coming to see them. So, they looked forward to our nurses and other [health care providers] coming out to see them.”
In 1999, Shackelford left the Osage and went to the Ponca Nation’s White Eagle Clinic. “My first day, the Ponca administration had assumed administration of their clinic,” he said and explained that tribal-run clinics, IHS clinics and urban clinics all operate in distinctly different ways. Being part of a transition from an IHS-run to a tribally-run clinic would prove a critical experience for him, as he would work at all three types of healthcare programs for Native people.
“White Eagle was a tribal facility when I left there, and then I went to Oklahoma City Indian Clinic, which is an urban clinic.” In 2000, when Shackelford had grown his experience at all three types of facilities, he moved back to Pawhuska and became the director of nursing at the facility that, at the time, was an IHS rather than a tribally-run clinic. “So, I went to tribal, urban and back to IHS, and stayed at Pawhuska IHS for 15 years,” he said, noting that he stayed on as the Pawhuska clinic transitioned to a tribally-run administration structure in the mid-2010s.
During this period in Pawhuska, Shackelford won his first Director’s Award, in 2013. Under his leadership, the Pawhuska Indian Health Center received an award from the Office of the Regional Health Administrator, Region VI, of the Department of Health and Human Services for hypertension control and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for work controlling hypertension. The clinic was one of only nine hospitals in the entire nation to receive the award for hypertension control in the 2013-2014 award period.
Also in 2014, Shackelford was recognized by the Oklahoma City Area as a Government Performance Reporting Act (GPRA) Champion Provider. “I am very proud of that,” he said. “I’ve got a couple of pieces of crystal for thirty years of work,” he said. Now, at Pawnee Indian Health Center, he is yet again back at an IHS-run program.
“Tribal, urban and IHS, they’re all administered differently,” Shackelford said, but he is comfortable working in all three areas. His contribution across the sector has helped make Native health care increasingly strong, while making good on his early intentions to take care of his own.