KAREN:  I don't know if you can talk about any changes, reflect on the changes that you've seen being involved in rural health care for so long.  Pros and cons, things that have improved and things that maybe haven't. 

DR. PARK:  Well, we -- we did the best that we could.  If we saw a problem somewhere, improve on it. 

You know, whether it was communications or training or supplies, and, of course, pushing for clinic buildings. 

At one time there was no clinic buildings.  We used an empty room in a schoolhouse or something.  Church building.  Whatever was available.  And now many of these villages, if not all, have their own clinic. 

KAREN:  Yeah. 

DR. PARK:  And so that's been a great improvement.  Plus the privacy, you know, of being -- instead of being curtained off in the end of one room.  So -- but I think I wandered off your question.  What was --

KAREN:  What were some of the changes you've seen in -- just in generally?
 
DR. PARK:  Well, the changes are good.  And if they weren't, we tried to change that.  So -- and could usually manage. 

And working with the State Public Health nurses in our field positions, and then the health aides were getting more and more care into the villages so that they didn't have to fly in so often.  Especially little kids coming in, no mama.  Just been put on the airplane.  So some of those kind of problems were evident right off. 

KAREN:  Did you have any experience with the transition from Indian Health Service to the regional health corporations managing the health aides? 

DR. PARK:  Some, by the -- by the time it got to that point, I was getting closer to retirement before the regional health office -- regional health program really got going and got in charge of their own programs.  Because I was retiring by then.  And people like Carolyn Brown were involved and Richard Brodsky was involved. 

KAREN:  Okay. 

DR. PARK:  And that was -- and my involvement was more -- it was pretty much prior to the health corporations having the manpower to get into it and the money to get into it. 

KAREN:  Just from your observations, since -- do you have any thoughts about that change, whether it's how the health corporations are doing as compared to how the Indian Health Service operated?

DR. PARK:  Oh, they, as far as I can tell, have -- have been doing fine.  And have been working on the old basic manuals and going -- going from there.  And I can't think of any areas that aren't doing pretty good. 

KAREN:  Okay. 

DR. PARK:  And hopefully we left enough guidelines for them to go by.
 
KAREN:  When you look back on your years of work in this field, anything you reflect on that you might have done differently? 

DR. PARK:  No.  It was kind of starting almost from scratch.
 
KAREN:  Yeah. 

DR. PARK:  And some of us that then stayed for several years or more helped develop the programs. 

KAREN:  Yeah, I mean, that starting from scratch, how did you know where to begin? 

DR. PARK:  How did we know? 

KAREN:  Yeah. 

DR. PARK:  Well, just by what appeared.  And the patients that came in that had minor things that if there had been someone that could have helped them, wouldn't have had to come in, medically or financially. 
And so it depended on what landed on your doorstep in -- and was the incentive for developing the different manuals.