This story was adapted from original reporting by D. Sean Rowley for the Cherokee Phoenix, with additional reporting by the UK College of Medicine. Read the Cherokee Phoenix story.
Growing up in a small community in eastern Oklahoma, Dakota St. Pierre, M.D., learned early what it meant for people to take care of one another. That lesson continues to shape his work today as a second-year plastic and reconstructive surgery resident at the UK College of Medicine.
His commitment to serving others and improving access to care recently earned him the 2026 Cherokee Phoenix Seven Feathers Health Award, an honor made especially meaningful because it comes from the community that helped shape him.
At UK, St. Pierre is developing surgical skills to help restore function and quality of life while gaining a deeper understanding of the challenges patients can face accessing specialized care.
Choosing a specialty
St. Pierre entered medical school considering family medicine before an early rotation in plastic surgery changed his course. He remembers observing breast reconstruction for a patient who had undergone a double mastectomy as part of her cancer treatment.
“You see this woman who was newly diagnosed with breast cancer, underwent a disfiguring mastectomy surgery,” he told the Cherokee Phoenix. “Then you kind of meet her in that initial very emotionally-filled encounter.”
He followed the patient through a roughly 10-hour reconstructive procedure and more than a year of recovery, seeing firsthand the impact reconstructive surgery could have.
“She’s a completely new person,” he said. “She’s happy again. She can wear clothes that she couldn’t wear before.”
That experience helped draw St. Pierre to plastic and reconstructive surgery, particularly breast reconstruction and free tissue transfer. Today, he also has a growing interest in hand surgery and says much of his current work involves hand and facial trauma.
Finding a home for residency at UK
When it came time to consider residency programs, St. Pierre already had some familiarity with the Commonwealth.
“I rotated at UK as a visiting medical student and was very impressed by the operative skills of the senior residents at that time,” he said.
Since joining UK for residency, St. Pierre said mentors across several surgical specialties have continued to shape his training. He specifically noted a recent rotation with Christopher Kubajak, M.D. ’17, R ’23, at UK St. Claire helped him advance both his operative skills and clinical decision-making. He also pointed to standout experiences working alongside Quinn Dunlap, M.D., and Melina Windon, M.D., in head and neck surgery, as well as Prakash Pandalai, M.D., in surgical oncology.
Those experiences are helping St. Pierre develop as a surgeon, but his time at UK has also reinforced something that has been important to him since childhood: the effect that geography can have on a patient’s ability to get the care they need.
Seeing the need for care close to home
St. Pierre grew up between Stilwell and the Lake Tenkiller area of Eastern Oklahoma, where he said the close-knit tribal community influenced both his bedside manner and the direction of his career.
His upbringing also made him aware of gaps in specialty care in many Indigenous communities. Native patients, he said, may travel hours for procedures that take only 30 minutes.
“We need people that are willing to invest in those smaller communities and save people that kind of travel time,” he said.
At UK, St. Pierre has encountered similar challenges facing people who live far from specialty care.
“Working at UK has really put into perspective the need for increased access to specialty services in smaller communities and the strain they have on our health systems,” St. Pierre said. “We commonly see transfers in our trauma and emergency department from up to four hours away for basic services.”
That experience has reinforced his interest in improving access for communities that may otherwise have to travel significant distances for specialty care.
St. Pierre hopes to pursue research identifying surgical needs in tribal populations, including what he sees as an under-addressed demand for breast reconstruction among Native women.
“I think that there’s a need for plastic and reconstructive surgery providers in tribal communities,” he said.
For St. Pierre, the Seven Feathers recognition carries particular significance because it comes from fellow Cherokee Nation citizens. “It’s my people giving me the award,” he told the Phoenix.
But he also hopes his work reaches beyond medicine. His journey, he hopes, can show young people from communities like his own what is possible.
As St. Pierre continues his training at UK, that goal remains closely connected to what he is seeing and learning as a resident: that where someone lives can profoundly affect the care available to them, and that physicians have an opportunity to help close those gaps.