Medical School Recollection: Living, Breathing Surgery
Lori Alvord, MD, recalls her path to surgery
By Joyce Thomas
Photo courtesy of: Dartmouth Medical School
When she started at Stanford in 1981, Lori Alvord, MD never expected
to become a surgeon -- at that time a pursuit highly atypical for a woman,
especially a Navajo woman. Nevertheless, she fell in love with surgery
and went on to become the first Navajo woman surgeon.
Looking back, she says, Stanford's supportive atmosphere for female
surgical trainees helped make her dream a reality.
Alvord, medical school class of 1985 and residency class of 1991, recalls
in particular a surgery rotation at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center
with Luther Cobb, MD. "He took me under his wing," she says.
With a huge number of patients and a team of physicians who worked as
a community of surgeons, the SCVMC rotation in 1984 provided a rich educational
environment. "We lived, ate, breathed surgery; it was very enjoyable,
animated, a great learning laboratory," recalls Alvord.
At Stanford, says Alvord, both James Mark, MD, and Harry Oberhelman,
MD, stood as pillars of surgery and were very well-liked. "Oberhelman
handled really difficult surgical cases but was always pleasant," she
says. "He always had a smile."
The general surgery and cardiac surgery programs were spectacular, guided
by medical stars such as transplant pioneer Norman Shumway, MD, she says.
She fondly recalls cardiac surgeon Craig Miller, MD. "He was awesome
and he had a wonderful sense of humor."
In addition to working at Stanford Hospital, Alvord was a patient there
during her second year of residency when she experienced high fevers
and serious chest pain. The diagnosis was empyema, a pneumonia that breaks
through the lining of the lung and had a 30 percent mortality at that
time. "Thankfully, I didn't know that."
She says she realized then that the hospital where she was working and
learning did an outstanding job providing care.
"Also I was fortunate in training at the time that John Collins, MD,
was chair of surgery," she says. "He encouraged and promoted women in
surgery, which was against the grain of the national perception among
surgeons."
At an informal ceremony near the close of her Stanford training in 1991
Alvord gave Collins a Navajo rug in appreciation. "Collins, who was generally
all business, gave me a copy of a book called 'The Natural Superiority
of Women,' " she says.
One last recollection goes back to spring 1985 and Match Day, when graduating
medical students find out where they will go for their postgraduate training.
Alvord, who was homesick for New Mexico and hoping to match with the
University of New Mexico, dreamed she had instead matched at Stanford.
"In my dream, I started to cry. When I woke I wondered, 'What's really
going to happen?' Well, obviously, I did match with Stanford," she says. "Maybe
the dream was to prepare me. Maybe destiny was making the decision for
me, the right one. I discovered that UNM did not have many women residents
and New Mexico would have been a hostile, uninviting place for me.
"Ultimately, I got used to the idea of a longer time at Stanford, which
turned out to be the best place for me," says Alvord.
Alvord, MD, now associate dean of student affairs and multicultural
affairs and assistant professor of surgery at Dartmouth Medical School,
describes her journey as a surgeon in The Scalpel and the Silver Bear,
Bantam Books, 1999.
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