The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing

The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional HealingThe first Navajo woman surgeon combines western medicine and traditional healing. A spellbinding journey between two worlds, this remarkable book describes surgeon Lori Arviso Alvord's struggles to bring modern medicine to the Navajo reservation in Gallup, New Mexico and to bring the values of her people to a medical care system in danger of losing its heart. Dr. Alvord left a dusty reservation in New Mexico for Stanford University Medical School,

Grandpa shows the boy rabbit tracks and deer hiding among the trees

the pulse of longing

and boarding schools

even sacred

Omishto witnesses her Aunt Ama kill a panther - an animal considered to be a sacred ancestor of the Taiga people

and history

Nora Murphy explores the origins of white

treaty rights guardian

Each section begins with a poem from traditional oral literatures and closes with emerging poets

spreading the word about scientific knowledge

and how the consequences still resonate today

Unapologetically sentimental