


Re-aired November 2020
Meet the first Native American doctor and the brave women who follow in her footsteps.
She was America's first Native doctor, breaking barriers of race and gender to heal her traumatized people. A century later, Native women from many tribes follow in her footsteps. How can they hope to mend wounds of body and spirit that history has created? And what have they learned about new ways of healing that can help us all?
She was America's first Native doctor, breaking barriers of race and gender to heal her traumatized people. A century later, Native women from many tribes follow in her footsteps. How can they hope to mend wounds of body and spirit that history has created? And what have they learned about new ways of healing that can help us all?
The Legacy of America’s First Native Doctor
Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte responded tirelessly to the needs of her people.
The Legacy of America’s First Native Doctor
In her letters home, Susan La Flesche describes her fascination with medical school.
Medical School or Marriage?
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Providing Support for PBS.org
Photos from Medicine Woman
About the Show
She was America’s first Native doctor, breaking barriers of race and gender to heal her traumatized people. A century later, Native women from many tribes follow in the footsteps of Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte. How can they hope to mend the wounds of body and spirit that history has created? What have they learned about new ways of healing that can help us all? "Medicine Woman" documents their stories.



On a windy fall day on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota, Wehnona Stabler goes home to burn some sage. As the director of an Indian hospital, Stabler battles diabetes, meth addiction, STDs, and teenage suicide. Often, she dreams of floating down the Missouri River to her home on the Omaha reservation where one of her heroes, Dr. Picotte, was born.
Picotte was America’s first Native doctor. As a child, Picotte watched an Indian woman die because the white doctor never showed up. So, Picotte became a doctor herself, graduating first in her class from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. She returned home to a tribe ravaged by disease and alcohol and devoted the rest of her life to healing wounds of the body and spirit. A century later, Native women from many tribes followed in her footsteps.
In South Dakota, Dr. Lucy Reifel walks through the doors of her mobile clinic on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. She gives shots, weighs infants, and talks to mothers about the virtues of breastfeeding. Then, she goes home to her oldest child, a young man who needs constant care. Reifel's son, Casey, was born with fetal alcohol syndrome to a mother who had been drinking throughout her pregnancy. Thirty years ago, Reifel adopted him.
Meanwhile, in Page, AZ, near Monument Valley, Dr. Lori Arviso Alford scrubs her hands in preparation for surgery. Soon, she’ll walk through the double-doors to operate on her first patient of the day. As a graduate of the prestigious Stanford University Medical School, Alvord is the first member of the Navajo tribe to become a surgeon.
When a way of life is shattered, it’s often the women who become the healers. Today’s medicine women struggle, as Picotte did, to serve their people, to raise their families, and to hold on to their tribal identities.
Producers and Funders
- Corporation for Public Broadcasting
- Vision Maker Media
- The Hawks Foundation
- University of Nebraska Medical Center
- Shakopee Mdewakanton Dakota Community
- Humanities Nebraska
- NET
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