Navajo medical student bridges cultures through medicine, memory, and mission
Special to the Times | Donovan Quintero
University of New Mexico medical student Taylor Russell, right in red cap, looks at a memorial site where different types of memorabilia like rocks, feathers, coins, and other items, are left in remembrance of the Navajo people who lost their lives while imprisoned at Hwéeldi in Fort Sumner, N.M.
FORT SUMNER, N.M.
Under the bright, windswept skies of Fort Sumner, where the painful echoes of the Long Walk still linger, Taylor Russell stands as a quiet force of healing and hope. A second-year medical student at the University of New Mexico, Russell is pursuing more than a degree. She’s pursuing restoration – of stories, cultural knowledge, and the delicate balance between traditional and Western medicine.
Special to the Times | Donovan Quintero
An 1882 photo displayed at the Bosque Redondo Memorial in Fort Sumner, N.M., shows young Navajo men and a young woman, posing at Carlisle Indian School.
“I spent the summer with my grandpa,” she explains, her voice carried by the wind. “He told me about his grandma, an herbalist. We went out toward Niinahnízaad and gathered what she used – local herbs and traditional plants. That’s what my research is about.”
Special to the Times | Donovan Quintero
A coin specifically made to receive a daily ration of food at Hwéeldi between 1864 and 1868, is displayed at the Bosque Redondo Memorial in Fort Sumner, N.M.
For Russell, who hails from Kirtland, New Mexico, medicine isn’t just about clinical procedures – it’s about legacy. Her project, which she said she’ll present at the Association of Family Medicine Physicians conference in Albuquerque in August, explores the healing properties of traditional Navajo medicinal plants.
To read the full article, please see the April 3, 2025, edition of the Navajo Times.
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