Dr. Michael Carroll, Transcript Section 1

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KAREN: Today is August 12th, 2005, and this is Karen Brewster. I'm here with Dr. Mike Carroll, his office at the Cancer Treatment Center at the Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.

Thank you for agreeing to talk to me about your experiences as a doctor up in Tanana and the health aide program.

If you could just start by telling me a little bit about yourself, your background, when and where you were born, education.

DR. CARROLL: I'm a -- actually lived in Alaska continuously since 1977. I originally came to Alaska from the Pacific Northwest, Portland, Oregon, and first came up in 1968 when I was in medical school.

After I graduated from medical school, I did my internship, and then came back to Alaska and spent two years on the Yukon River at the Indian Health Service Hospital in Tanana, Alaska. And that was from 1970 to 1972. And then I left and got additional training and returned to Fairbanks in 1977.

KAREN: Okay. And where did you get your medical training?

DR. CARROLL: I went to the University of Oregon Medical School, I did my internship at McGill in Montreal. Did my internal medicine residency at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and did my oncology fellowship at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

KAREN: And why did you decide you wanted to come to Alaska? What got you to Tanana?

DR. CARROLL: When I was a kid, I used to cut grass for a silver-haired stampeder who had come up during the Gold Rush. And I would cut the front yard, and I would sit on the stairs and have a Hires root beer and a Fig Newton and a story about Alaska.

And on Saturday nights, I'd go up and we would look over the old National Geographics and identify things about Alaska, so it was always this place that had an allure to me.

And so when I finally had the opportunity to come, you know, I jumped at it and worked at coming back in the Public Health Service so -- so that I could get a chance to work with the Native people.

At that time and still, I've always felt that a vital part of Alaska are the Native people. They make up a huge part of what makes Alaska what it is, and that was just a wonderful experience to be out there in the village and taking care of them.

KAREN: And so how does it work to get the job with the Public Health Service? I guess then it was Indian Health Service?

DR. CARROLL: Yeah, it was Indian Health Service, and part of the United States Public Health Service. The Indian Health Service is a branch at that time of the United States Public Health Service. And it was a commissioned course, so you had an actual rank and military assignment.

And you could have been assigned to take care of the Merchant Marine Academy, the Coast Guard, or Indian Health Service beneficiaries. And -- and I wanted to come to Alaska, so I worked very hard to get assigned up here and to have that tour of duty.

You may or may not be old enough to recall that, you know, in the '60s and '70s there was a war called Vietnam on.

KAREN: Yeah.

DR. CARROLL: So most physicians had a military obligation, and this also counted as military duty -- service.

KAREN: Okay.