By Stacy Thacker, University of Montana

With Native American month kicking off I thought I’d take a look at Natives accomplishing cool things and acknowledge their success as well as hopefully unearth some over looked Natives in the process because everyday somebody is doing something cool.

I’d like to start with Dr. Lori Arviso Alvord. She is the first Navajo woman to become a surgeon. I read a recent article in the Navajo Times about Dr. Alvord and was instantly intrigued. Dr. Alvord was accepted to Dartmouth College at 16. I can’t even remember what I was doing at age 16 but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t anything important.

Like anybody coming off the reservation into a new environment Alvord experienced some culture shock. In her profile on the National Library of Medicine archives, Alvord explains how different the student environment was.

Coming from the Navajo Nation to Montana I experienced the same shock, I was used to doing things on my own in seemingly quiet places. However that wasn’t the case anymore, I was constantly meeting new people.

People would and still do come up and just introduce themselves and the only quiet area around is the library. Coming from a reservation high school or community college to a university where the Native population is much smaller is a new experience.

Having completed her time at Dartmouth, Alvord went on to finish her medical degree at Stanford University School of Medicine. When she returned to the reservation to work with Natives she said there was an element missing. Modern medicine wasn’t enough for most of her patients and she realized that the cultural aspect needed to be addressed to treat the patient as a whole.

I don’t have goals of becoming a surgeon. But I do find Dr. Alvord’s story inspiring. I hope others will too.

Stacy Thacker (Navajo) is from Navajo, N.M.