Dr. Walt Hollow:
A Pioneer on the Frontlines of Native American Medicine

Recalling how young he was when he became interested in a medical career, Dr. Hollow believes that getting to kids early on might be one way to start nurturing the next generations of Indian physicians. He wants to turn the light bulb on for them, much as his grandfather turned it on for him.

"One of the things that I did when I was a medical student here and went back to my own reservation is, I went to all of the grade schools, junior high and high schools, and I said, 'Have you guys thought about being a physician?' And I gave a talk that was designed to encourage them to start thinking about that. And I just remember this day in a grade school class, it was two second grade classes, there were probably fifty kids, and I got up and gave a talk about Indian health and brought in my stethoscope and my otoscope [an instrument for examining inside the ear], and I was letting them listen to each other's heart and look into each other's ears and just sort of getting them used to, you know, what a physician would do. And at the end of the talk I said, 'How many of you want to be a doctor when you grow up?' And, you know, there were about twenty hands that went up.

"So, for the Indian student who's doing academically well, we pay their way back to their own reservation and encourage them to go to the schools and do some more talks. And I had one student who would get the students and shape them in the form of a heart and the arteries and the capillaries and the lungs, and then she would send a student in and out of the four ventricles and out into the arteries and around through the capillaries and veins back to the heart and then out to the lungs to get oxygen and back. And she loved doing that. And the kids loved it. So, you know, I guess the other part of the Center of Excellence is trying to make the Indians who do this in particular, understand how important it is for them to become mentors and role models and to do that if they have the time and are academically successful."

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Please contact Miles White at mwhite@u.washington.edu