The View of a Lifetime Inspires
What makes a life of significance?
A weighty question, certainly, and maybe even impossible to adequately address.
For Weasel, finding a life of significance is found in effecting change as an adventurer and a physician; to lead by example. Part of his own personal journey compelled him to become the first Native American to reach the peak of Mount Everest, Earth’s highest point, which he achieved on May 17, 2023. But his motivation wasn’t notoriety; it was to inspire.
“I didn’t think climbing Everest was for me at all, but I did some research and read about the first Black man and the first Black woman to summit Everest, and the first Native American to climb Denali, but I couldn’t find anything about the first Native American to reach the top of Mount Everest,” he explains. “I thought someone should be the first, and why not me?”
The Nepali name for Mount Everest is Sagarmatha, which means “Goddess of the Sky.” Sitting on the border of Nepal and China at 29,028 feet above sea level, it earns that moniker. Weasel spent time at Everest Base Camp before trekking up the mammoth mountain.
“Everest as a mountain has changed me – in a positive way. I encountered my own mortality in a way I’d never experienced,” he remembered. “I saw death and sadness on the mountain. I came down from it to Kathmandu and was emotionally heightened, just processing what had happened. I thought about the ways I could have lost my life.
“PTSD changes you,” he continued. “It’s hard to put into words, that deep appreciation for life. It’s not just being grateful to be alive, it’s more than that. Experiences are much richer than they were before. It’s a subconscious valuing of life in a different way.”
Mount Lhotse, often called “Everest’s South Peak,” was to be the next summit for Weasel the day after Everest, but the expedition was called off due to safety concerns. “It was devastating,” he said. “I was so focused on the goal to climb Everest and then summit Lhotse the next day that I wasn’t fully able to appreciate that moment and its gravity of that amazing experience of reaching the top.”
The child of a Lakota mother and Assiniboine father, Weasel is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Tribe. After growing up in Omaha, Nebraska, Weasel graduated summa cum laude from Creighton University with an undergraduate degree in theology and health administration and policy. Then, a few months after receiving a rejection letter from the University of Nebraska Medical Center medical school – the feeling of rejection was devastating, he said – he was admitted from the waitlist to attend his first choice of medical schools, graduating in 2013. He later completed surgical residency at Iowa Methodist Medical Center.
Currently, Weasel practices general surgery at Monument Hospital, where he’s been since 2018. In 2021 he also became assistant dean of the SSOM Office of Diversity & Inclusion, a department that helps to promote a welcoming and inclusive environment for students, faculty and staff through a variety of direct programming.
DenYelle Kenyon, Ph.D., assistant dean of the Office of Diversity & Inclusion, said the SSOM is fortunate to have Weasel involved with medical students. “He is a great physician mentor and his bond with medical students in Rapid City really shows he cares about them,” she said. “He is incredibly inspiring when speaking to high school and undergraduate students about his pathway into medicine. This is doubly impactful for Native youth, as he conveys his reasons for climbing Mount Everest and the impact of the trip. It’s quite a unique message and great way to relate to them about setting goals and overcoming obstacles.”
Weasel’s own inspiration to enter medicine came at an early age. “At 16 years old, I felt called to enter medicine,” Weasel asserted, “and I knew I wanted to serve Native Americans.”
Although he had no real ties to Rapid City, it wasn’t an accident that he and his family of five landed there. “Making a home in Rapid City, where 30% of the population is Native by demographics, made sense because I can work for a nonprofit and serve Native people,” he explained. “I’m doing the full scope of what I’ve been trained to do; I’m not limited in terms of practice. I felt in some way like I was coming home, even though it was a place I’d never actually called home.”
It is difficult, no doubt, to understand each patient’s perspective with mortality. Weasel often delivers troubling news, whether it’s having to tell young man he’s got inoperable cancer or telling a mother that her child is not going to live. “Having those conversations is difficult,” he said. “You need to put yourself in their positions and to have the ability to empathize, understand and appreciate our own mortality and human experience. Coming away from Mount Everest helps me to empathize with my patients, especially when it comes to death and dying and what it means to be a human being.”
The world still has a lot to offer an adventurer like Weasel. In late January, Weasel plans a trip to Argentina and will summit Aconcagua, South America’s tallest peak. Further into the future, he has his sights set on hiking the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, learning how to sail, riding a motorcycle from Alaska to South America and taking a pilgrimage through Northern Spain for two weeks. He also plans to become the first Native American to achieve the Seven Summits of the seven continents and to complete the Explorer’s Grand Slam, an adventurer’s accomplishment of climbing the Seven Summits plus skiing the North and South Poles.
“The world is a very beautiful and amazing place full of experience,” he mused. “People are generally lovely, and I love to see different expressions of humans throughout the world. It’s priceless to me.”
For Weasel, significance is found in that service to others, through education or practicing medicine, and being a husband and father. “I hope my life is an example of humility and service to others,” he said. “It’s important to try to live for something bigger than yourself. My father used to say, ‘A person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.’ I want to be remembered as a devoted man who loved his family. I’d rather be a great husband and father than a great surgeon.”
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