The Scalpel and the Silver Bear Quotes

“As a minority physician, you will be constantly challenged, " He said. "your decisions will be questioned, your authority doubted. To be successful, you will have to have higher standards than everyone else. You will have to study harder, train longer, and know your materials backward and forward. In the operating room, you will need to know the anatomy, how to do the operation, and what alternative operations might also work. You will have to be prepared to handle any emergency that might arise.” Pg. 50”
― Lori Arviso Alvord, The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing

“As I memorized the name of every bone and tendon and blood vessel they seemed like the names of animals or trees. There is great power in know the name of something. pg. 39”
― Lori Arviso Alvord, The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing

“In the Western world…disease is very compartmentalized by organs or medical specialties, and in some ways this does not benefit the patient. Specialists often don’t look outside their own parameters to see what else might be influencing an illness. A Navajo healer…will look at the person’s whole life and the lives of those around him or her…The Navajo view is a macro view, whereas Western medicine often takes a micro view.”
― Lori Arviso Alvord, The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing

“Navajos believe in hozho or hozhoni – “Walking in Beauty” – a worldview in which everything in life is connected and influences everything else…So Navajos make every effort to live in harmony and balance with everyone and everything else. Their belief system sees sickness as a result of things falling out of balance, of losing one’s way on the path of beauty. In this belief system, religion and medicine are one and the same.”
― Lori Arviso Alvord, The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing

“The best surgeons didn't operate on gallbladders or spleens or hearts, they operated on the people who owned them. People with children, jobs, interests, and beliefs. They operated on lives.”
― Lori Arviso Alvord, The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing

“Usually, the healer has lived in the same community with the person for decades; he knows a great deal about the person and what might be happening in his or her life. The Navajo view is a macro view, whereas Western medicine often takes a micro view. pg. 187”
― Lori Arviso Alvord, The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing

“As I stepped down into the dirt yard, I thought I heard him say one last thing, almost under his breath: "Be humble." I wondered when I would see him again. pg. 168”
― Lori Arviso Alvord, The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing

“With beauty before me, there may I walk.
With beauty behind me, there may I walk.
With beauty above me, there may I walk.
With beauty below me, there may I walk.
With beauty all around me, there may I walk.
In beauty it is finished.
- Blessing Way
pg. 157”
― Lori Arviso Alvord, The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing

“As a minority physician, you will be constantly challenged, " He said. "your decisions will be questioned, your authority doubted. To be successful, you will ahve to have highter standards than everyone lse. You will have to study harder, train longer, and know your materials backward and forward. In the operating room , you will need to know the anatomy, how to do the operation, and what alternative operations might also work. You will have to be prepared to handle any emergency that might arise.”
― Lori Arviso Alvord, The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing

“Odd things occurred almost daily. I decided simply to relax and be open.”
― Lori Arviso Alvord, The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing

“New technologies, like biofeedback, were helping us understand that the mind can indeed control the body. New research has even shown that the mind is able to positively or negatively influence the immune system, and our body’s ability to fight against cancers and infections. Medicine men were capable of working through channels that we in Western medicine did not yet understand.”
― Lori Arviso Alvord, The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing