INMED

INMED, short for Indians into Medicine, is a program at the University of North Dakota’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences. In Lani Walker’s story, it becomes both an educational path toward medicine and a setting where she can meet Native students from other communities. Her experience makes the program significant as a place of connection, even as her family ties and responsibilities eventually draw her back to Tucson.

Program and Setting

Four years before the events of the novel’s present, Lani’s parents tried to persuade her to complete her undergraduate work in Tucson. Brandon Walker was especially insistent: after losing two of his three sons, he did not want to lose his daughter to distance as well. Lani nevertheless chose Grand Forks, North Dakota, and enrolled in INMED at the University of North Dakota’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

The program included students with differing academic needs; some came seeking remedial assistance in one or more subjects. Lani and her friend Leah Donner stood apart in this respect as outstanding students. Their shared academic ability connects them, but the support Lani values most is also social and cultural: she wanted to study among Native students from tribes across the country.

Community and Belonging

Raised as a Tohono O’odham child in an Anglo household and educated in predominantly Anglo schools, Lani hoped that leaving Tucson would let her meet people familiar with the uncertain ground between Anglo and Native cultures. She wanted peers who understood the daily work of navigating that divide. INMED brought her into contact with students whose experiences could make that understanding possible.

Lani’s friendships in North Dakota give that hope a concrete form. Her roommates included Margie, a Paiute from Nevada; Darlene, a Rosebud Sioux; and Laura, a Black-foot from Montana. The women shared values and humor, and learned from one another: Laura taught them to ski, while Darlene helped Lani learn to ice-skate. The account presents this companionship as part of Lani’s life around her studies, rather than reducing her time away to coursework alone.

Leah, whom Lani met in a Society and Literature class during their freshman year, became her closest friend. Although Leah was a White Mountain Apache and Lani a Tohono O’odham, each was an orphan raised by an adoptive family, and both excelled academically. Their backgrounds were not identical: Leah had grown up in an all-Indian household and was surprised to learn that Lani’s parents were Anglo. Their friendship thus brings together shared experience and difference without treating either as incidental.

Education and the Pull of Home

At the novel’s present, Lani has been accepted into medical school at the University of Arizona, but she is still finishing her final examinations at the University of North Dakota. She longs to return to Tucson, believing she is needed at home. Her decision to study far away had once been a deliberate effort to find a community beyond the one in which she had grown up; returning now reflects a change in what she feels she must prioritize, not a rejection of the education or friendships she found through INMED.

Lani had planned to spend the summer after graduation volunteering with Leah for Doctors Without Borders, and the two had made a verbal agreement to go together. But Lani is worried about Fat Crack Ortiz’s worsening illness and wants to be home with him. She returns to Tucson as soon as she finishes her last exam, leaving Leah to continue with the plan. The departure gives INMED’s role in her life a clear limit: it has provided a setting for study and belonging, but it cannot keep her from the obligations and relationships that call her home.