Spidle, Jake W., 1941-

Edith F. Millican was born in Kihsian, Honan, China in 1914 to Presbyterian missionary parents. She graduated from the Shanghai American School, China, in 1930. In 1935, Dr. Millican received a B. S. from the College of Wooster in Ohio and in 1939 received her M.D. from the Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia.

After an internship in Philadelphia and postgraduate training in Obstetrics in New Jersey, Dr. Millican was sent temporarily to Embudo, New Mexico (1941-1943) to assist at a Presbyterian hospital run by Dr. Sarah Bowen. Dr. Millican was a medical missionary in China under the Presbyterian Church Board of National Missions during World War II and for a period of time afterward. She returned to Embudo in 1948 and then became the physician in charge of the Mora Valley Medical Unit in Cleveland, New Mexico. From 1961-1964 Dr. Millican completed an obstetrics residency at Woman's Medical College in Philadelphia and then returned to New Mexico to establish a private practice in Las Vegas.

Dr. Millican retired from private practice in 1978 and moved to Albuquerque, but continued to work with a clinic program at the San Miguel Health Department. Edith Millican died in February, 1985.

From the guide to the Edith F. Millican Oral History, August 1983

Wilhelm F. Rosenblatt, M.D.

Wilhelm Friedrich Rosenblatt (1913-2004) was born in Leipzig, Germany in 1913. Although his father and an uncle were physicians, it was not until late in his high school years that Dr. Rosenblatt thought of becoming a doctor. He received his medical degree at the University of Leipzig in 1936. In 1937, Dr. Rosenblatt passed the state boards and then completed a one year internship. However, he was not allowed to get a medical license because he was half Jewish and Germany was in the throes of Nazism. He spent a year in the German Luftwaffe, but was dismissed for being Jewish. For the next four years, he tutored medical students privately until he was incarcerated in a German forced-labor camp, part of Organisation Todt, where he was a physician for foreign laborers. In 1945, Dr. Rosenblatt became a prisoner of war of the United States Army in France. In March, 1946, he was repatriated and went to Marburg an der Lahn, West Germany to enter an internal medicine residency. After three years he became a specialist according to German regulations and began working for the German Veterans' Administration as an internist. Dr. Rosenblatt emigrated to the United States in 1953.

After arriving in the United States with his oldest daughter, Dr. Rosenblatt first took a job as staff physician at a hospital in Ossining, New York. He sent for his other three children and his wife and took a new position at the Hopemont Sanatorium, a state tuberculosis sanatorium in West Virginia, where he would receive room and board. After five years, he moved to Decatur, Alabama to another state TB sanatorium. While on vacation in the western United States, Dr. Rosenblatt, with the encouragement of his children, visited the New Mexico State Health Department to check for job openings. In 1966, having received his institutional license to practice in New Mexico, he settled his family in Fort Stanton, where he had been appointed an attending physician with the Department of Hospitals and Institutions at Fort Stanton Tuberculosis Sanatorium. When the Fort Stanton sanatorium was closed in 1966, Dr. Rosenblatt became medical director of Fort Bayard Tuberculosis Hospital (New Mexico). He transferred to Albuquerque, and later to Santa Fe, as chief of the Chronic Disease Control Bureau of the Public Health Division of the New Mexico Department of Health. Dr. Rosenblatt retired in 1983 after fifteen years working with various state departments and moved to Corrales, New Mexico.

After retirement, Dr. Rosenblatt continued to be involved with tuberculosis and public health by becoming an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and as an advocate for public health improvement and universal access to free, quality medical care. He also was an active member of the United States-Mexico Border Health Association and the Physicians for Social Responsibility. Dr. Rosenblatt died in 2004.

From the guide to the Wilhelm F. Rosenblatt Oral History Collection, 1991, (New Mexico Health Historical Collection, UNM Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center.)

Bruce Dean Tempest was born in 1935 in Catasauqua, Pennsylvania and grew up in the small, rural farming community. He graduated from Lafayette College in 1957 and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1961. Following a residency in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in Immunology and Allergy, Dr. Tempest moved his family to the U.S. Public Health Service Indian Hospital in Tuba City, Arizona, where he was Chief of Internal Medicine and Clinical Director from 1967-1970. From 1970-1971, Dr. Tempest was Chief of Internal Medicine at the U.S. PHS Indian Medical Center in Gallup, New Mexico. From 1970-1976, he was the Clinical Director of the Pneumococcal Surveillance Program at the Gallup Indian Medical Center. From 1971-1991, Dr. Tempest also held a clinical appointment at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and from 1983 through the time of this interview, he was the Tuberculosis Control Physician at the Gallup center. In 1983, Dr. Tempest was given the Indian Health Service Clinician of the Year Award. From 1985-1996, he was a Senior Consultant in Internal Medicine at the Navajo Area Office of the Indian Health Service. In 1996, Dr. Tempest retired from the U.S. Public Health Service.

From his first day in Tuba City when he when was met by the single remaining physician and asked to see a patient with plague, Dr. Tempest treated infectious diseases not usually seen in the eastern part of the United States. Pneumonia, tuberculosis and a diphtheria outbreak helped encourage him to sponsor a TB conference with western health care providers involved in the same type of work. The conference evolved into a yearly occurrence which allowed for networking and practice cross-fertilization. In 1993, Dr. Tempest was a major figure in the identification of Hantavirus in an outbreak in the Four Corners area of the United States.

From the guide to the Bruce D. Tempest Oral History Collection, 1998, (New Mexico Health Historical Collection UNM Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center.)

C. Pardue Bunch, M.D.

Charles Pardue Bunch was born May 4, 1913 in Statesville, North Carolina. Although he spent most of his formative years in Statesville, Dr. Bunch lived with relatives a few years in New Mexico for health reasons. He graduated from Carlsbad (New Mexico) High School in 1929. That year he was sixteen, president of his senior class, and the winner of the Governor's Cup for an essay he wrote on highway safety, although he had never driven a car.

Dr. Bunch received his undergraduate degree from Duke University in 1934 and that same year was a delegate to the first American-Japanese Student Conference in Tokyo. In 1935-36, he was headquarters secretary of the Student Volunteer Movement in New York. He received his M.D. degree from Duke Medical School in 1939. In 1941, Dr. Bunch started graduate school in Chinese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in preparation for becoming a medical missionary. However, his health and World War II intervened and instead he started a general practice at Sturgill, North Carolina. Dr. Bunch moved his practice to Artesia, New Mexico in 1944.

A man of many interests, Dr. Bunch published articles in medical and scientific journals and wrote a chapter, "Is All Healing Based on Faith?" for a book titled "Faith Healing." He was an active participant in local, state, and national organizations. Dr. Bunch was a charter member of the American Academy of Family Practice, and the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. He was an active member of the New Mexico Medical Society, holding various committee positions and serving as president in1963-64. Dr. Bunch was president of the Eddy County Medical Society, 1951-1952, and an associate clinical professor at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Department of Family Practice. From 1952-1958, Dr. Bunch was a member of the New Mexico Board of Medical Examiners.

In 1984, the New Mexico Chapter of the American Academy of Family Physicians nominated Dr. Bunch for the "Family Doctor of the Year." Letters of support for this nomination came from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, patients, colleagues, educators, and his church. Dr. Bunch was named one of the ten finalists for the award.

Dr. Bunch married Marjorie King in 1936 and they had four children. He retired in 1984 after forty years as a family practitioner in Artesia. Dr. Bunch died November 3, 1985.

From the guide to the C. Pardue Bunch Oral History, 1984, (New Mexico Health Historical Collection, UNM Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center.)

Reynaldo Deveaux, M.D.,1983 Reynaldo M. Deveaux was born in Vera Cruz, Mexico, in 1918. He received his medical degree from the National School of Medicine in Mexico City, Mexico, in 1944. While president of the university's student council, Dr. Deveaux received a letter from the United States Farm Home Administration asking for two doctors finishing medical school to participate in a health care program for low-income patients. His medical school granted Dr. Deveaux permission to substitute this experience for the six months of practice in a rural Mexican community required as part of his degree program.

Speaking very little English, Dr. Deveaux and a classmate, Dr. Arturo LaMonthe, arrived in Taos, New Mexico, in 1942 with a six-month contract to work in the local hospital and travel to rural clinics in the county. He continued to work with this program until its end in 1948. Though Dr. LaMonthe then returned to Mexico, Dr. Deveaux, who now had a family, decided to take the medical examination and get licensed to practice in the United States. However, he was met with opposition from a local doctor, who threatened a lawsuit to stop Dr. Deveaux's examination. With help from his father-in-law, a New Mexico state senator from Taos, Dr. Deveaux's medical degree was recognized and he was allowed to sit for his examination. He was licensed in 1948.

Dr. Deveaux opened a private practice in Taos, where he worked until his retirement in 1983. While his medical practice was general, he liked obstetrics and delivered thousands of babies in the Taos area over his more than forty years of providing health care.

From the guide to the Reynaldo M. Deveaux Oral History Collection, 1983-1984, (New Mexico Health Historical Collection, UNM Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center.)

Fred H. Hanold, M.D.

Fred Heath Hanold (1915-2006) was born in Bloomfield, New Jersey in 1915, and spent his childhood in East Orange, New Jersey. His undergraduate degree from New York University was completed in 1937 and he received his M.D. from the same institution in 1940. Dr. Hanold started his internship and internal medicine residency at Bellevue Hospital in New York City in 1940, but this training was interrupted by World War II. He was part of the U.S. Navy Medical Corps from 1942-1947 and spent some of the war on a ship in the Pacific. During his time in the military, he attended the U.S. Navy's School of Aviation Medicine in Pensacola, Florida, which included flight training. In 1947 Dr. Hanold returned to Bellevue Hospital to complete his residency.

The war contributed to the change in the practice of medicine in the United States. When Dr. Hanold's training ended in 1949, he entered a profession that no longer could meet the expectations with which he had started his residency before the war. His desire to stay in New York City and combine a private practice with a teaching career was not practical for the family man he had become. After seeing an ad for a salaried position with private practice opportunities at the Santa Fe railroad hospital, Memorial Hospital, in Albuquerque, Dr. Hanold traveled across country to interview. Having decided that the job was a good opportunity and that the level of medical practice was what he wanted, Dr. Hanold and his family moved to New Mexico in 1950.

Working first at the railroad hospital with a part-time practice, Dr. Hanold went to a full-time private practice in 1954. In 1974, he returned to Memorial Hospital, where he worked until he retired from practice in 1980. During these years, Dr. Hanold was Chief for the Bernalillo County Cardiac Clinic, from 1952-1972, a New Mexico delegate to the first and second annual meetings of the American Society of Internal Medicine, and Chief of Medicine and Chief of Staff at Memorial Hospital, St. Joseph Hospital, Bernalillo County Hospital, and Presbyterian Hospital. He was an attending physician at the Albuquerque Veterans Administration Hospital from 1952-1960, Clinical Attending at UNM School of Medicine from 1963-1976, and a clinical professor in Medicine at the medical school for many years. Dr. Hanold's interest in medical education led him to start a one year rotating internship and three year residency in medicine at the Bernalillo County-Indian Hospital in 1954 and 1955.

Dr. Hanold continued as an active participant in the New Mexico Medical Society and at the School of Medicine after retirement while he pursued his interest in the history of medicine in New Mexico. For many years, he was chairman of the Medical Society's History of Medicine Committee, which sponsors the collection of oral histories of health care professionals throughout the state. Dr. Hanold died April 17, 2006.

From the guide to the Fred H. Hanold Oral History Collection, 1984-1985, (New Mexico Health Historical Collection, UNM Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center.)

Lawrence Wilkinson, M.D.

Lawrence Hoyt Wilkinson (1916-1992) was born in Katy, Texas on July 4, 1916. Growing up on a cattle ranch in a small community, Wilkinson graduated as Valedictorian from his high class of eleven students. Coming of college age during the peak of the depression, Lawrence Wilkinson paid for his education at Southwestern University by working as a biology lab assistant and a hospital orderly. He graduated with his B.S. in premedical education in 1937. After college, Wilkinson applied for medical school and was initially turned down. He applied a year later to Baylor University College of Medicine and was accepted. Supporting himself by working numerous jobs and sacrificing the "personal pleasures" of sleep and fun, Lawrence Wilkinson received his M.D. in 1942. After completing a one-year internship at Herman Hospital in Houston, Texas and serving three years in the Army Air Corps, Wilkinson accepted a residency in surgery at Methodist Hospital in Houston in 1946. In 1948, Wilkinson moved with his wife Lanette to establish a surgical private practice in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Dr. Wilkinson was appointed to the Board of Regents of the University of New Mexico in 1959 by Governor John Burroughs. During his tenure, the university undertook the construction of the School of Medicine with a 1.2 million dollar grant from the Kellogg Foundation. Dr. Wilkinson supported the establishment of a medical school in New Mexico and assisted in garnering faculty and medical community support for its construction. UNM President Tom Popejoy commented in 1971 that, "Larry debated strongly for the school when the going was rough." In 1961 Wilkinson was elected President of the Board of Regents and served a two-year term. In all, Dr. Wilkinson served on the Board of Regents for twelve years. In 1987 Dr. Wilkinson retired from private practice but remained a resident of Albuquerque.

Over his forty year career in Albuquerque, Dr. Wilkinson was honored many times. In 1965, he was honored as a distinguished alumnus from Southwestern University. In 1969, he was given the Brotherhood Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews for his public service in Nicaragua. In 1971 Dr. Wilkinson received the A.H. Robins Community Service Award from the New Mexico Medical Society. In 1980, he was given the Bernard S. Rodey Award from the UNM Alumni Association. In 1981, Dr. Wilkinson was honored with the UNM Regents' Recognition Medal.

After retiring from active medical practice, Dr. Wilkinson continued to participate in professional and community organizations. He died August 9, 1992.

From the guide to the Lawrence Hoyt Wilkinson Oral History, 1984, (New Mexico Health Historical Collection, UNM Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center.)

George E. Omer, M.D.

Born in Kansas City, Kansas on December 23, 1923, George E. Omer (1922-) became a nationally recognized orthopaedic surgeon in the United States Army before establishing himself as a prominent surgeon and academician specializing in hand surgery in the Albuquerque, New Mexico area. The son of southern Colorado homesteaders, George Omer received his B.S. in Chemistry from Fort Hays Kansas State University in 1944. Having completed one year of medical school at the University of Kansas, Omer enlisted in the United States Army, becoming a second lieutenant in the Medical Administrative Corps. In 1947, Omer returned to medical school at the University of Kansas, receiving his medical degree in 1950. During his internship at Bethany General Hospital in Kansas, Dr. Omer was inducted into the U.S. Army for the second time as a physician draftee in the Korean War. He was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division and then later to orthopaedic service at Fort Benning Hospital. In 1952, Dr. Omer accepted an orthopaedic residency at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas and made the decision to pursue a medical career in orthopaedic surgery with the United States Army.

After completing his residencies at Brooke Army Medical Center and William Beaumont General Hospital in El Paso, Texas, Omer held the position of Chief Orthopaedic Surgeon at Fort Riley, Kansas. During his twenty years of service with the U. S. Army, Dr. Omer served as Chief of the Hand Surgery Unit at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Denver, Director of the Orthopaedic Residency Training Program and Orthopaedic Pathology courses at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and the Director of the Hand Surgery Center as well as Chief of the Orthopaedic Residency Training Program and Orthopaedic Service at Brooke Army Medical Center. For his service, Dr. Omer received the United States of America Legion of Merit Medal and earned the ranking of Colonel.

In 1970, Dr. Omer left the military and accepted a position at the newly founded Department of Surgery at the University of New Mexico. Originally a division of the Department of Surgery, the Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation Department became freestanding after his arrival with Dr. Omer as Chairman. From 1970 until 1990, Dr. Omer held three concurrent academic appointments at the University of New Mexico. In addition, Omer worked as the Interim Medical Director at The Carrie Tingley Hospital for Children 1970-1972 and 1986-1987 and also served as the Assistant Dean for Graduate Education at the University of New Mexico Medical Center from 1979 to 1981. In 1990, Dr. Omer became Professor and Chairman Emeritus in the Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation. Under Dr. Omer's leadership, the Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation expanded from two physicians to seventeen full-time professionals and developed a division in sports medicine and the first academic division of hand surgery in the United States.

Dr. Omer retired in 1990 and resides in the Albuquerque area with his wife Wendie and family.

From the guide to the George E. Omer, Jr. Oral History Collection, 1950-1999, (New Mexico Health Historical Collection, UNM Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center.)

Ulrich Cameron Luft (1910-1991) was born in Berlin, Germany on April 25, 1910 to a Scottish mother and a German father. As a child he spent considerable time in Scotland including one extended visit in 1914 which lasted six years due to World War I. Luft graduated from the University of Berlin medical school in 1935. After an internship in Berlin, he spent two years in pathology and completed a doctoral thesis on the morphological changes in tissues in heart muscles and the brain on exposure to hypoxia stimulated by low pressure in a small lo-pressure chamber.

Combining interests in mountaineering and medicine, Luft participated in the 1937 and 1938 German expeditions to Nanga Parbat in the Himalayas as a research physiologist and team physician. His observations of the Sherpa guides at high altitudes led him to collect data on the climbers, noting an increased tolerance to altitude over time that persisted after descent. This effect was applicable to the unpressurized aircraft of the time and to aero-medicine during World War II.

Dr. Luft became the head of the altitude physiology laboratory at the Aero-Medical Research Institute in Berlin after returning from the Himalayas. In 1939 he was drafted into military service, spent three months in training, and then returned to civilian life as a researcher. In 1941, he was elected to the faculty at the University of Berlin where he focused his research on problems in aviation medicine. He was also a consultant to the German military on thermal stress and nutrition.

At the end the war, Dr. Luft opened a private practice and returned as faculty to the University of Berlin. In 1947, he was given a research appointment at the Air Force School of Aviation Medicine in Texas as part of “Operation Paperclip,” an effort to bring German scientists to the United States. In 1954, Luft was hired by William Randolph Lovelace II to head the Physiology Department at the Lovelace Foundation for Medical Education and Research in Albuquerque, New Mexico. There he continued his research efforts in the effect of oxygen deficiency on body tissues. This research impacted the fields of pulmonary disease, exercise tolerance, oxygen equipment design and led to his participation in the physical testing of the original Mercury astronauts at Lovelace.

Dr. Luft retired from Lovelace in 1980 and died at his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on November 23, 1991.

From the guide to the Ulrich C. Luft Oral History, 1985

Robert Cushing Derbyshire, M.D.

Robert Cushing Derbyshire (1910-1987) was born in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York on November 25, 1910. After graduating with a B.S. from Hampden-Sydney College in 1931, Derbyshire attended Johns Hopkins University and received his M.D. degree in 1936. After working one year as an Assistant Resident of Surgery at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Derbyshire accepted a Fellow in Surgery position at the Mayo Clinic. He remained at the Mayo Clinic until 1941, when he left to become part of the surgical staff at Martin Memorial Hospital in North Carolina. In 1942, Dr. Derbyshire was offered a position at Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Due in part to his contraction of tuberculosis, Dr. Derbyshire left North Carolina for Lovelace Clinic. He remained at the Lovelace Clinic until 1948 when he opened a private practice focused on general surgery in Artesia, New Mexico (1948-1950), and later relocated his practice to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he remained until his retirement from active practice in 1975.

Dr. Derbyshire was an influential and controversial figure in the medical field, both regionally and nationally. He served as Secretary of the New Mexico Board of Medical Examiners (1952 to 1985), President of the New Mexico Medical Society (1962-1963) and as editor of the Federation Bulletin . Dr. Derbyshire was an active advocate of continuing medical education and was considered an expert on medical licensure and discipline. In 1969 he wrote a book on the topics entitled, Medical Licensure and Discipline in the United States . Although the subjects often earned Dr. Derbyshire public booing and "rotten tomatoes," his lobbying on behalf of licensure and discipline brought national recognition to the problems and contributed to the implementation of new rules and regulations for practicing physicians. He served as a member in numerous professional organizations including the Santa Fe County Medical Society, Alpha Omega Alpha, the Federation Licensing Examination Committee and the National Board of Medical Examiners. Dr. Derbyshire remained active in the medical community until his death on July 24, 1987.

From the guide to the Robert Cushing Derbyshire Oral History Collection, 1983, (New Mexico Health Historical Collection, UNM Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center.)

Born in Copemish, Michigan in 1910, Dr. Demarious Adeline Cornell Badger grew up assisting her father, the only physician in the northern Michigan sawmill communities near Traverse City. She never planned to be a physician, but enrolled at the University of Michigan at the age of sixteen, hoping to be a pianist. When the stock market crashed in 1929, Dr. Badger began to think seriously about her need to earn a living and realized that her interest in biology had earned her the credit hours to be accepted into medical school. She enrolled in the University of Michigan Medical School in 1930, earning her M.D. in 1934. The day after graduation, she married fellow classmate Dr. William Earl Badger, whom she met while a junior in college. She completed her internship and residency at University Hospital in Ann Arbor. In 1937, after Dr. William Badger had been diagnosed with tuberculosis, the couple moved to Hobbs, New Mexico, and set up a private practice. For many years, Dr. Badger was the only female physician in Lea County. The Badgers practiced in Hobbs until their retirement in 1980, when they moved to Albuquerque. Dr. Demarious Badger died in 1990 at the age of 80.

Dr. William Earl Badger was born in the oil town of Findlay, Ohio, in 1909. Though many relatives were engineers, he knew he wanted to be a doctor. This desire grew his junior year of high school when his father died after a long illness. Though Dr. Badger matriculated at Dartmouth, he enrolled at the University of Michigan in 1927 to be closer to his mother. He continued on to the University of Michigan Medical School, receiving his M.D. in 1934. The day after graduation, he married fellow classmate Dr. Demarious Cornell Badger, whom he met while a junior in college. Like his wife, he did an internship and residency at University Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In 1937, Dr. Badger was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and the couple moved to Hobbs, New Mexico, for the climiate and to set up a private practice. Dr. Badger was board certified in surgery in 1952 and served as president of the New Mexico Medical Society in 1961-1962. The couple retired to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1980. Dr. Badger died in at the age of 82 in 1992.

From the guide to the Demarious C. and W. Earl Badger Oral History, 1983, (New Mexico Health Historical Collection)

Clayton S. White, M.D.

Clayton Samuel White, known as Sam, was born in Fort Collins, Colorado on October 11, 1912. He graduated from the University of Colorado in 1934 with a degree in psychology and minors in mathematics and physics. Having won a Rhodes Scholarship in 1935, he earned a baccalaureate in physiology at Oxford and received a year and a half of credit at the medical school at the University of Colorado. In 1942 he received his medical degree from the University of Colorado. Immediately following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Dr. White entered service in the Navy. While in the Navy, Dr. White conducted research on oxygen masks and liquid oxygen converters on Naval aircraft, among other projects. During his service in the navy, Dr. White made the acquaintance of William Randolph Lovelace III. This meeting began a series of collaborations that would eventually draw Dr. White out of the Navy and into New Mexico.

In 1947, Dr. Lovelace recruited Dr. White to be director of research of the freshly organized Lovelace Foundation for Medical Education and Research in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Tempted by the opportunity to return to the west, Dr. White left the Navy and began work with Lovelace. With a substantial contract from the Atomic Energy Commission to study the blast and shock effects of big explosions, Dr. White developed mathematical formulas to explain why one building might be leveled and the one next to it, remain standing. When Dr. Lovelace was killed in a plane crash in 1965, Dr. White became director of the Lovelace Foundation. Through the years Dr. White worked on problems of aging, memory loss, hypothermia, cosmic rays, geology and pollution of the upper atmosphere.

From 1974 to 1979, Dr. White was the president of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation in Oklahoma City. Among his many honors, Dr. White was awarded the State of New Mexico Distinguished Public Service award in 1973. Dr. White died on April 26, 2004 at Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

From the guide to the Clayton S. White Oral History Collection, 1938-1998

Sidney Solomon, Ph.D.

"We were completely free in a semi-hostile, semi-friendly setting and could make a first-rate medical school in an area which may or may not have had the substrate for doing it. It was a great adventure." So spoke Dr. Sidney Solomon in 1984 when asked about the beginnings of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. Dr. Solomon was one of the founding faculty of the new school and long-time chairman of the school's physiology department.

In 1923, Sidney Solomon (1923-1992) was born in Worcester, Massachusetts where he lived until his started college. He attended a year of college and then joined the Marine Corps and served in the South Pacific. Dr. Solomon returned to college at the end of World War II and received his B.S. degree from the University of Massachusetts in 1948 and his Ph.D. in physiology from the University of Chicago in 1952. He took a job as an instructor of physiology at the Medical College of Virginia and taught for eleven years. His last year was spent on a Guggenheim Fellowship in the German Republic working with Carl Ulrich. While in Berlin, he received a job offer from the dean of the new medical school in New Mexico. Dr. Solomon arrived in Albuquerque, New Mexico in June, 1963 and stayed until his death in 1992. He served as Chairman of Physiology for 15 years and taught physiology until his retirement from the university in 1989. During this time he also spent one year as Program Director of Metabolic Biology and one year as Acting Director of the Division of Physiology, Cellular and Molecular Biology with the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Solomon died May 16, 1992 and was survived by his wife, Mina, and two daughters, Anne Solomon-Sanchez and Susan Rivera.

From the guide to the Sidney Solomon Oral History Collection, 1984-1992, (New Mexico Health Historical Collection, UNM Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center.)

Valerie Friedman McNown was born in Messina, New York in 1916. Raised in the United States and Canada, she graduated from Michigan State University in 1938. Dr. Friedman graduated from McGill University with an M. D. in 1945. After pediatrics residencies at Children's Memorial Hospital (Montreal, Canada) and Children's Hospital (Columbus, Ohio), she spent from 1948-1950 as a contract physician with the U. S. government at Los Alamos, New Mexico. She opened a private practice and worked for the state's health department at the end of her government contract.

Dr. Friedman practiced in northern New Mexico for forty years. After her retirement in 1987, she opened an antique shop. She and her architect husband, Allen, moved to Nambe, New Mexico.

From the guide to the Valerie F. McNown Oral History, May 1989

Virginia Voorhies Milner was born and raised in Iowa, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister. Early in life, Dr. Milner decided to become a medical missionary to India. She graduated from the University of Iowa Medical School in 1933, one of six women in a class of 106. She completed an internship in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and her residency at Women's Hospital in New York City.

Dr. Milner arrived in New Mexico in 1939 as an assistant physician for the Presbyterian Women's National Mission Board first at Dixon's Brooklyn Cottage Hospital and then at Embudo Presbyterian Hospital. While her appointment was to be temporary as she waited for an opportunity to go to India, Dr. Milner spent two years working in Embudo. She married in 1941 and moved to Albuquerque where she worked for the New Mexico Department of Health giving health clinics. She opened a private practice in 1960 and retired in 1985. Dr. Milner published a memoir of her time in Embudo in 1989.

Virginia Voorhies married Richard Milner, the architect for the Embudo Hospital, in 1941, and had four children. Dr. Milner died in Albuquerque, New Mexico January 1, 1992.

From the guide to the Virginia Voorhies Milner Oral History, October 1983

William L. Minear, M.D., Ph.D. ca 1948

William Loris Minear (1910-1994) was born into a family of homesteaders in Bismarck, North Dakota on March 18, 1910. Although the practice of medicine did not run in his family, Minear recalled entertaining medical curiosities at a young age by performing appendectomies on neighborhood cats.

Trading cats for human subjects, Minear attended the University of Washington and received his Bachelor of Science degree in pre-medicine in 1931 and then attended medical school at Northwestern University. While at Northwestern, Minear supported himself by working the night shift at a mortuary. He graduated with his Ph.D. in 1936 and his M.D. in 1937. After graduation, Dr. Minear accepted a position teaching in anatomy at Stanford University. While en route to Stanford, Dr. Minear's train stopped in Tucson, Arizona. With only five dollars in his pocket, Dr. Minear decided to stay in Tucson instead of continuing to California due to his own health problems. By this time, Dr. Minear had developed arthritis and the Arizona climate provided relief from the pain.

In Arizona, Dr. Minear worked as a mining camp doctor in Copper Creek. After one year, the mine closed and Dr. Minear opened a general practice in Patagonia, Arizona. He remained at the practice until 1943. While in Arizona, Dr. Minear married his college sweetheart, Bergitte Bensen, who also worked as his nurse. In 1943, Dr. Minear decided to leave Arizona to pursue a residency in orthopedic surgery at the Mayo Clinic. However, while on route, Dr. Minear stopped at the Campbell Clinic at the University of Tennessee and decided to take his residency there. He remained at Campbell Clinic until 1946 when he received his Master of Science in Orthopedic Surgery. After his residency, Dr. Minear worked briefly in private practice in Seattle, Washington before returning to Tucson, Arizona where he remained until 1947.

In 1947, Dr. Minear became Chief Surgeon at Carrie Tingley Hospital for Crippled Children in Hot Springs (now Truth or Consequences), New Mexico. Dr. Minear worked at the hospital during the polio outbreaks of the 1950s when the hospital was so overcrowded patients had to sleep in the hallways. In addition to polio cases, the hospital also treated patients with tuberculosis, cerebral palsy and congenital deformities. During his tenure, the hospital received the polio vaccine and Dr. Minear wrote a pamphlet on the distribution of polio cases in New Mexico. After nine years with Carrie Tingley Hospital, Dr. Minear left Hot Springs to open a private practice in Albuquerque. He remained in Albuquerque until his retirement in 1975.

After retirement, Dr. Minear continued his hobbies of scuba diving and insect collecting. In 1987, Dr. Minear compiled a history of the Carrie Tingley Hospital entitled, "Carrie Tingley Hospital for Crippled Children: The Founders and the First Two Decades." Included in the history are the minutes for the Carrie Tingley Hospital Board of Directors, information on the surgeons and directors of the facility and papers written by Dr. Minear and others regarding the hospital. Dr. Minear also worked with the University of New Mexico, Department of Anthropology until his death on May 7, 1994 at the age of 84.

From the guide to the William L. Minear Oral History, 1985, (New Mexico Health Historical Collection UNM Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center)

W. Sterling Edwards, M.D.

W. Sterling Edwards (1920-2004) was born into a Birmingham, Alabama medical family on July 23, 1920. After high school, he entered the Virginia Military Institute as a premedical student and graduated in 1942. In 1945, Edwards received his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Dr. Edwards completed his internship at Massachusetts General Hospital (1945-1946) and his residency in Surgery at the same institution (1948-1952), serving with the United States Army Medical Corps between his internship and residency. Following a fellowship in Cardiovascular Physiology at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, Dr. Edwards returned to Alabama as a faculty member at the Medical College of Alabama. During his 17 years at the school, Dr. Edwards built an animal laboratory in which he conducted extensive cardiovascular research and where he developed the first synthetic artery. Although his achievements in research were significant, he took special pride in his teaching abilities.

In the late 1960s, Dr. Edwards decided to leave Alabama for a faculty position at the newly founded University of New Mexico Department of Surgery. He arrived in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife, Ann Dudley Edwards, and their family in September, 1969. During his first five years at the University of New Mexico, Dr. Edwards focused on building a heart program within the Department of Surgery. Incorporating local doctors into the teaching format, Edwards formed ties between the department and the surgical community. In 1974 Dr. Edwards accepted the position of Chairman of the Department of Surgery, becoming the third chair in departmental history. During his tenure, Dr. Edwards placed an emphasis on the development of the surgery residency program and oversaw the establishment of numerous surgical sub-specialties. Dr. Edwards ended his thirteen year career as Surgery Chairman when he retired in 1987.

After retirement, Dr. Edwards entered a new phase in his medical career. Noticing how uncomfortable and helpless most doctors, himself included, were when dealing with terminally ill patients, Dr. Edwards began one-on-one counseling with patients who were dying and their families. After consulting with the physician of record, Dr. Edwards would discuss the medical condition and treatment with the patient using non-medical terms. Additionally, he would act as an interpreter by asking the physician questions on behalf of the patient, who was either unable or too embarrassed to ask directly. Dr. Edwards also was active with the Albuquerque Center for Attitudinal Healing. In 1998, Dr. Edwards and his family established the Edwards Family Endowment with the University of New Mexico School of Medicine that would allocate $20, 000 for approved projects pertaining to the enhancement of communication skills for the medical school community.

In 1997, Dr. W. Sterling Edwards was honored for his commitment to the University of New Mexico School of Medicine with the W. Sterling Edwards Endowed Professorship of Surgery. Dr. Edwards resided with his family in Albuquerque, New Mexico until his death on June 28, 2004 at the age of 84. On August 11, 2004, the Multimodality Imaging Laboratory at the University of Alabama-Birmingham was dedicated in the memory of W. Sterling Edwards, M.D.

From the guide to the W. Sterling Edwards Oral History, 1994, (New Mexico Health Historical Collection, UNM Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center.)

Donald Kilgore, M.D. Donald Edgar Kilgore (1922-2011) was born in 1922 in Asheville, North Carolina. His father's business took the young family to both South and North Carolina, and to Texas during the Depression years. In the early 1930's, Kilgore and his brother stayed a year in an isolated Baptist boarding school in coastal North Carolina. When his parents finally settled in Detroit, the boys joined them and Kilgore spent his high school years there. He attended a junior college for two years and then joined the United States Navy in 1942 at the beginning of World War II. He was nineteen.

Kilgore's college years made him eligible to be an aviation cadet. He became a patrol plane commander and flew 81 combat and civic missions. After three years of wartime service, he returned to attend the University of Michigan. Upon graduation from medical school in 1950, Kilgore became an intern at a Detroit hospital. When the Korean War started in 1951, he volunteered and completed three more years in the Navy. In six years, he had seen service in two wars.

When he left the Navy, Kilgore realized that his two great loves, after his family, were medicine and flying. At that time the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico was the center of aviation medicine. He left his family in Rhode Island and came to New Mexico to interview for a position with the clinic. He decided during his one day in Albuquerque that Lovelace would be a good place to start his career. Dr. Kilgore came to the growing Lovelace Clinic in 1953 and gave that institution nearly four decades of service before his retirement in 1992. A critical figure in the institution's history, Dr. Kilgore served as President and Chief Executive of The Lovelace Medical Center in the period 1969-1975.

From the guide to the Donald E. Kilgore Oral History Collection, 1964-2001, (New Mexico Health Historical Collection, UNM Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center.)

Alvin S. Hartz was born in 1915 in Baltimore, Maryland. He received his B.A. from Johns Hopkins in 1934 and stayed to attend graduate school in Public Health from 1934-1935. He graduated from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1939. Dr. Hartz completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland in 1943.

After serving in the United States Army Medical Corps from 1943-1946, Dr. Hartz returned to private and hospital practice in Internal Medicine in Baltimore. A desire for a different kind of practice and a need to find a more hospitable climate for his young asthmatic son, led Dr. Hartz to Farmington, New Mexico in 1953. He joined the San Juan Clinic, where he was the first board-certified specialist in the community. Dr. Hartz practiced in Farmington until he retired in 1989. Dr. Hartz died in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on September 6, 1989, at the age of 73.

From the guide to the Alvin S. Hartz Oral History, March 1987, (New Mexico Health Historical Collection)

Jack C. Redman, M.D.

Born in Alamosa, Colorado on September 20, 1924, Jack Curry Redman (1924-1994) moved with his family to Albuquerque, New Mexico at the age of five. As a self-proclaimed University of New Mexico "faculty brat," Dr. Redman, whose mother, Bess Redman, was a voice professor at the university, had a lifelong connection to UNM and the Albuquerque area. Dr. Redman attended Albuquerque High School, where he was quarterback on the football team and played against future governor of New Mexico Bruce King. He enrolled at the University of New Mexico as a pre-medical student but was called to duty with the United States Navy one semester shy of his graduation in 1945. In 1987, forty-two years after his expected graduation from UNM, Dr. Redman received his undergraduate degree from the University of New Mexico.

After his military service, Dr. Redman completed his Bachelor of Science degree in Boulder, Colorado. In 1946 he started medical school at the University of Colorado, where he graduated with his M.D. in 1950. After graduation from medical school, Dr. Redman accepted an internship at the United States Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia and served in the Korean War for fourteen months. It was during his internship that Dr. Redman delivered his first babies and made the decision to go into family practice. In 1951, Dr. Redman returned to Albuquerque, New Mexico to open a private practice in general and family medicine. Over his many years of practice he would deliver more than 3,000 babies.

During his forty years of medical practice, Dr. Redman became a prominent activist, both locally and nationally. He ran unsuccessfully as the Republican candidate for the U.S. Congress in 1962 and then again in 1964. In the summer of 1967, Redman served sixty days in Vietnam with the Volunteer Physicians for Vietnam of the American Medical Association, where he provided medical care to injured civilians. As a result of his volunteer service in Vietnam, Jack Redman received the New Mexico Medical Society's P.H. Robins Community Service Award. In 1975, Dr. Redman was honored for being the first doctor to successfully treat pneumocystis carinnii in a young Vietnamese girl in Albuquerque. In 1977, Dr. Redman initiated the development of the New Mexico Skin Cancer Project, which focused on educating the people in the state about the risk of skin cancer. His involvement led him to lecture in several foreign countries and placed Dr. Redman at the forefront of melanoma education. In addition to numerous other honors, in 1988, he was awarded the American Cancer Society's St. George Medal in recognition of outstanding contribution to the control of cancer. In 1985, Dr. Redman presented a resolution entitled "The Total Woman Resolution" that recommended an annual cervical cancer examination for women rather than the standard every three years. Dr. Redman's advocacy of the resolution influenced the American Medical Association's 1987 recommendation for annual breast and pelvic exams for women. Jack Redman remained active in educating the public about the risks of cancer until his death on September 15, 1994.

From the guide to the Jack Curry Redman Oral History Collection, 1987, (New Mexico Health Historical Collection, UNM Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center.)

David Bellar Post was born June 28, 1923 in Schenectady, New York. A 1948 graduate of the University of Michigan School of Medicine, he served a Pediatrics Fellowship at the Mayo Clinic from 1949 to 1952. Dr. Post worked at Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico from 1952-1953 and then practiced in Los Alamos, New Mexico from 1953-1958. He had a private practice in Albuquerque from 1958-1989, when he retired.

Dr. Post was board-certified in Pediatrics and was a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics. As a member he served as state chairman from 1963 to 1969, and on the Indian Health, Nominating, and Wyeth State Chapter Awards Committees. He was active in the New Mexico Pediatrics Society. Dr Post died August 28, 1993 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

From the guide to the David Bellar Post Oral History, September 1991, (New Mexico Health Historical Collection)