KAREN:  Do you remember your first trip out to the village?
 
DR. PARK:  No.  I think it was probably the Iliamna area, but I wouldn't guarantee that. 

KAREN:  One of your first experiences, do you remember when you first went to the village and what you thought about all that?
 
DR. PARK:  Well, it was just something I thought I had to do.  And it was interesting, of course, to meet the villagers and meet whatever aide you'd been talking to over the phone.
 
KAREN:  Do you remember how long it was between when you started in Anchorage and when you had to go out and do a village trip?
 
DR. PARK:  I think -- I think it was probably 1959 because for a year or two, I was the only one in the outpatient clinic locally.  And I don't remember -- I'm pretty sure.  I think it was probably '59.

KAREN:  So what did you do -- you said you ran the outpatient clinic.  What was that all about? 

DR. PARK:  Just a general outpatient department.  One position.  And across the hallway was one dentist.  And then we soon had two dentists.  So they got the ball -- they got work. 

And I don't remember what year it was that I got a full-time second physician.  And so initially, you just did whatever needed to be done.
 
KAREN:  Yeah, I was going to say, what kind of patients and cases did you end up seeing? 

DR. PARK:  Anything.  With -- see, there was no -- I don't think I had an -- let's see.  There was one internist on duty.  You know, for the whole hospital.  Two surgeons.  The first year there was no pediatrician.  Might have been two years.  But there were a couple private pediatricians helping us.  John Tower.  Do you --

KAREN:  No. 

DR. PARK:  And Helen Whaley.  You've probably heard that name.

KAREN:  That sounds familiar.

DR. PARK:  And they saw patients whether we -- on call for us, whether we paid them or not.  So that was a volunteer basis, too.  And even when they started paying them, that wasn't a very big fee. 

KAREN:  So did people come in from all around Alaska? 

DR. PARK:  Yeah.  They didn't travel in as much as they do now.  They did an awful lot of they ordered their -- whatever they wanted to order for delivery to a village, you did an awful lot of that on phone or radio.  And didn't -- didn't travel back and forth near as much.

KAREN:  Do you feel like the training you received in medical school in your internship prepared you --

DR. PARK:  No. 

KAREN:  -- for that work?  No? 

DR. PARK:  I'd just as soon that I'd do anything that needed to be done.  And there were a few things that were surprising. 

KAREN:  Like what? 

DR. PARK:  Well, I mean, you just -- you just did it.  And you'd go into a village -- you know, you wouldn't go into a village when a lot of people were sick.  It was unusual unless there was some kind of URI or flu going around at the time. 

But usually it was a matter of immediately realizing that anybody with a chronic disease should be seen every trip.  Kept them from having to get back and forth to the hospital. 

And it was awhile before we had the funds and the money to actually pay for bringing them in --

KAREN:  Right. 

DR. PARK:  -- if they needed to come in. 

And that started fairly early on, the early '60s.  In fact, it might have been a little bit sooner than that, that if we -- that we could authorize with our travel office to pay for someone to come in. 

But at that time, sometimes when a child had got sick, quite sick, and had to come in on an emergency basis, they would just hand them to the first Bush pilot that came by.  And they would bring them by. 

And sometimes they didn't even -- they had forgotten to get their name.  So we -- we occasionally had a baby or a little kid who couldn't give a name.  And it might be a couple days before someone would call in and say, how's Johnny?  You know, that -- it was pretty -- pretty grass roots type thing.
 
And -- and we soon had authority to pay transportation.  And then we finally got authority to also pay for the -- one of the parents to come in.
 
And -- but once in awhile, even then, we would get little kids in because the parents were busy with several others at home, and they -- or there would be only one parent.  So you just -- you just got so you did whatever had to be done. 

KAREN:  Do you remember what one of those surprises in the hospital where you -- you're faced with something and you didn't -- weren't prepared for it? 

DR. PARK:  Well, usually, here in town we had enough staff that we could call somebody.  It might be someone else with the same kind of training, which was basic general medicine.  But we did have at least one surgeon around, you know, that they weren't covering for each other.  And we had two surgeons in about the second year I was here.  And we had one internist. 

So we had people we could call on locally.  But for the most part, I saw whatever came in the door.  And decided what -- what was to be done or -- or call on what few specialists we did have.  And then when we -- and we also used a few of the private specialties, like the pediatricians. 

KAREN:  Right.