DURANGO, Colo. — Lori Alvord would not look conspicuous in her hometown of Crownpoint. Her story, however, is certainly quite unique.

The first female Navajo surgeon, she expected to become a teacher, and corralled her younger sisters at desks to lecture them. Alvord returned to the Four Corners recently, saying it felt good to be home when she spoke in front of nearly 100 people at Fort Lewis College.

“The future I could see as a child is not the future I have today … but in some ways I have fulfilled that particular dream,” she said.

Alvord serves on the faculty at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire as an assistant professor of surgery and the associate dean for student and minority affairs. She practices medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, N.H., and has written a book detailing her experiences. The book is titled “The Scalpel and the Silver Bear.”

The Navajo people she knew as a child were assistants to people who held more prestigious jobs, such as surgeons, Alvord said. But by chance, she met a Navajo man who attended Princeton University and he encouraged her to apply there. Alvord, however, refused to attend a school without a native population and instead turned to Dartmouth College.

Farmington Daily Times