Dr. Lori Alvord’s is a part of two worlds where in one she is a surgeon and in the other, she is a member of the Navajo Nation. Despite a scalpel being some tool surgeons use, Alvord’s “surgeon world” is represented by the scalpel because she had to cut and sew pieces of her identity together for her worlds to co-exist. As it is stated in the introduction, “the words “Navajo” and “surgeon is not often seen together. (1)” Alvord had to perform an incision on her identity to give herself a functioning reality of her dreams and desires. Her Navajo Culture is represented as a silver bear because Alvord wears a trinket on a necklace which represents her Navajo heritage. Alvord stated, "The scalpel is my tool...but may 'Silver Bear', my Navajo beliefs …show more content…
As a surgeon, Alvord’s feels disconnected from her patients. In modern medicine, you are not permitted enough to time to create a bountiful relationship with your patients. Patients often feel like a set of organs rather than a person. It states “now more than ever, patients themselves feel removed and forgotten, powerless in the face of the institutions that were created to help them. (2)” This behavior is extremely different in Alvord’s culture. In the Navajo culture, medicine is performed by a hataalii, who is someone who sees a person and not simply a body. The Navajo culture believes that healing is not a one-on-one relationship because true healing includes a balanced and harmonious life with all components of the world. The mind, body, and spirit are connected to families, communities, the pant, and the universe. A form of healing in Alvord’s culture is through songs. It states, “in many parts of the worlds when a person is ill, a song is sung to heal. For this to be effective, that person must let the song sink into her body and allow it to penetrate to even the cellular level of her being. …show more content…
When Alvord first decided to continue her studies, she knew she was going to have to leave her native land. Leaving Dinetah, meant she would lose the protection of sacred mountains. These mountains held significant meaning to her culture and abandon them meant living an imbalanced life. In the words of Alvord, “it was a frightening prospective. If I left, I would leave the enclosed and sacred world within the strong mountains, standing out. (25-26)” There was another interesting contradiction with Alvord's studies and culture. After Alvord was admitted into medical school, she began her cadaver stage of medical school. She had to dissect human organ although “Navajos do not touch the dead. Ever. (40)” This was one of the strongest rules in her culture because it is believed when a person dies the good part of the person leaves with their spirit while the bad spirits stay in with their physical