Dr. Bill James, Part 1, Transcript Section 7

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Dr. Bill James, Part 1
Transcript Section 7

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DR. JAMES: But when I came back in '73, then, we had the satellite, ETS-1 satellite, and we had an hour a day, noon to 1:00 or 1:00 until 2:00 where we had medical traffic scheduled with all the villages, and most of the villages then had a satellite. So the trans -- or the communication then was pretty much 100 percent.

KAREN: So yeah. It seems like Tanana was one of the few places that had satellite. It was sort of an experiment, from what I understand, right?

DR. JAMES: Uh-hum.

KAREN: And did it prove successful?

DR. JAMES: Yeah, I think so.

KAREN: But it didn't last.

DR. JAMES: Well, when telephones came in.

KAREN: Oh, Okay.

DR. JAMES: When all the villages got telephones, then there was no reason for the -- there was no reason to use the satellite.

KAREN: Okay.

DR. JAMES: But just for the traditional, we still call it -- it's time for radio traffic. Well, it's telephone traffic then.

KAREN: When did telephones start coming in?

DR. JAMES: Sometime between '63 and '73, I don't know. Because they weren't there when I left in '63, but they were there when I came back in '73.

Just a minute. I take that back. I don't know when the -- the satellite was available when I came back in '73.

KAREN: In '73.

DR. JAMES: I don't know when the -- when the telephones came in.

KAREN: After -- when you went back in '73, it was satellite, it wasn't telephone?

DR. JAMES: No, it was satellite in '73. It was sideband radio in '63.

KAREN: Right. Okay. So what was that like now having trained health aides in the villages?

DR. JAMES: Well, it was real -- it was a great advantage because we could talk with someone who knew something. And the health aides had been trained to -- to diagnose and treat and they would talk to us about the proper treatment, help with the diagnosis.

If they felt that the patient should come to Tanana, to the hospital, well, then, we would make arrangements to get them in.

And also when they started having clinics, at first the health aides pretty much worked out of their homes. And so they had some supplies, and they would just have them in their home.

And then when they had actual clinic buildings, then we could have a lot more supplies and medicines for the health aides to work with. So our field trips, we took very little about us then. We didn't have to take all the medicines and supplies with us.

KAREN: Did you make field trips on the same type of regular schedule or now that there were health aides, did you make a few more trips?

DR. JAMES: Well, then, when I came back, there were more doctors. There were two in Fairbanks and three in Tanana where -- so that was five physicians. And where before, we were just two physicians.

So we continued making field trips, but each physician didn't have to make so many. We divided it up so that the people in Fairbanks would take care of the Fort Yukon area, and the people in Tanana would take the downriver, Koyukuk River area.

And we just took care of Fort Yukon and Anaktuvuk Pass. And then the people in Tanana, since there were more of them and they were less busy, took the highway, too.

KAREN: So would it still be like a one trip -- one -- like Fort Yukon would get a doctor once a month?

DR. JAMES: Pretty much.

KAREN: And so every village still got a doctor on the same kind of regular schedule?

DR. JAMES: Yeah, pretty much. I think that we tried to get to Tok once a month, Fort Yukon once a month, and Galena once a month. And the others four times a year was a goal.