This Week: DR. ERICA ELLIOTT, Physician & Author

Book: “Medicine & Miracles in the High Desert - My Life Among the Navajo People”

“Erica Elliott writes fearlessly, with an original voice that grabbed me from the first page. I love this book.” ~ Anne Hillerman, author, “Spider Woman's Daughter,” “Rock with Wings”

“This book is sorely needed at this moment in America when divisive voices incessantly warn us of the other, the foreigner, those who “are not like us.” “Medicine and Miracles in the High Desert: My Life Among the Navajo People” reveals how diversity and inclusiveness can enrich our own society — a lesson on which our future may depend.” ~ Larry Dossey, MD, author of “One Mind”

May 16, 2019 -- This week's guest on REPORT FROM SANTA FE is Dr. Erica Elliott discussing her book “Medicine & Miracles in the High Desert - My Life Among the Navajo People.”

Dr. Elliott is a physician practicing in Santa Fe, NM and her memoir traces the amazing odyssey of her life as an adventurer, world traveler, educator, author, doctor, and healer.

In 1971, right out of college, Erica went to the Navajo Reservation to teach school. Although the cultural differences were almost overwhelming at first, she succeeded in learning the difficult Navajo language, and grew to love and understand the complex Navajo culture. She spent summers sheepherding in a remote area of the Reservation near Shiprock.

Her experiences with the Navajo people were transformative and later in her life, after time in the Peace Corps and completing medical school, she returned to Cuba, New Mexico, providing medical care to primarily Navajo patients.