Going West

For the next four or five weeks I am working at Gallup Indian Medical Center (GIMC) in Gallup NM, on the border of the Navajo Reservation. Located about half way between Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Flagstaff, Arizona, Gallup was settled in 1881 as a coal mining town and became a stop for the railroad and the Interstate Highway of Route 66 in the past and the present I-40. Route 66 still goes through Gallup, and much of local sites bear history of that era. In the 1930s, 40s, and 50s Gallup has seen a lot of motion picture crews with a long list of movie stars and even two presidents, President Reagan and President Eisenhower. GIMC is a 100-bed Indian Health Services hospital that serves American Native patients, primarily Navajo. While here I will do inpatient medicine, HIV, ID, and general medicine clinics, and do home visits to Navajo patients. And of course hope to do a lot of traveling and site seeing.