The Scalpel and the Silver Bear

Born half-White, half-Navajo near the reservation in Gallup, New Mexico, Lori Alvord was educated in public schools, where fully 90% of students were from deeply impoverished Navajo backgrounds. Alvord nevertheless went on to Dartmouth and then to Stanford Medical School. Determined to help her people, Dr. Alvord returned to practice surgery at the Gallup Indian Health Service. What she discovered was that which made her people special - their sense of privacy, unreserved acceptance of nature, faith, magical spirituality - also made them difficult to treat. Yet the traditional ways of the Navajo also had much to offer: a sense of harmony which speeds up the healing process, and a belief that nature must be in accord or disharmony will ensue; a belief that a mind at peace will also help the body to be at peace. In The Scalpel And The Silver Bear, Dr. Alvord shows how she has embraced a method of healing which is neither exclusively modern nor solely traditional - rather, it is a melding of native spirituality and western technology.