My family is indirectly mentioned in the September/October 2017 Missouri Medicine article, “Project Apache: Bringing Pediatric Care to an Arizona Reservation circa 1972”.
I served at the White Mountain Apache Indian Health Service (IHS) Hospital as Chief Pharmacist and Pharmacist Practitioner from March 1973 to March 1977. Due to the geographic and social isolation, in addition to the youthful “can do” professional clinical staff, this duty station opened my eyes to serve for over two decades within the IHS on a variety of reservations.
My wife, Jeanne, and I saw the birth of our premature boy-girl twins at the Whiteriver Hospital on May 29, 1973. Both of the twins were med-evacuated out to the Phoenix neonatal intensive care unit, as described in Dr. Ranney’s article. Our son was given a 5% chance of survival, the most critical the NICU had experienced up to that time, but today is 20+ years into a career as a law enforcement officer. Our daughter is an excellent mother with a wonderful family and a college degree. Dr. Ranney and Dr. Fukuchi were our pediatric doctors and guided us through our twin’s well baby check-ups and illness, including a bout of hepatitis with our son. (See photo).
Bobbette was, and continues today, to be not only an excellent clinical physician, but is musically talented, academically gifted, a lover of everything outdoors, and an individual who has lived her life providing care and comfort for those in need.
When the Stottlemyer twins were born, an Apache named Molly Colelay made two cradle boards for the children. During the days they often slept in their snugly tied cradle boards. Above is a photo of the twins being held by their Mom and Dad on the rim of the Grand Canyon, October 1973.