Doctor Works and Teaches at ER

Mario Hidalgo

Doctor David Sklar in the Emergency Room at UNM Hospital

"I just want to help everybody"

by MARIO HIDALGO

For 27 years Dr. David Sklar has been working at the Emergency Department of the UNM Hospital. Sklar is a doctor in emergencies, the chairman of the department of emergency medicine and the dean for graduate medical education.

Sklar said he chose to be in the emergency room to make a real difference on people’s lives and to help them during their most vulnerable time. Moreover, Sklar said that in the emergency room people are being taken care of no matter the circumstances.

“It doesn’t matter if someone who needs help is native American, white or from Latin America, rich or poor, we take care of everyone equally,” Sklar said.

While walking through the emergency department he talks to doctors and nurses to be informed about the latest events. Sklar is accompanied by La Cueva High School senior Karl Uplegger.

Uplegger is doing an apprenticeship with the UNM Hospital and Sklar is his mentor.

“I am like his shadow, I follow him around,” Uplegger said. “I enjoy working with Dr. Sklar. He is a good teacher, and he gets along with everyone.”

Sklar devotes time with his patients to build up an interpersonal relationship with the patient. At the same time he explains everything to Uplegger.

Sklar, 57, originally from Chelsea, Mass. started college at Stanford University where he had a scholarship due to his academic performance in high school. He majored in psychology and took pre-med courses.

However, he decided to become a doctor before graduating from college. In 1970, Typhoon Kate battered the Philippines while he was volunteering as a psychology teacher in the easternmost island of Mindanao. Sklar was 20.

“We all, the students, have to put the people in a special place were they would be safe,” Sklar said. “The problem was that many people ended up losing part of their leg or their foot from infections or injuries. It was pretty impressive.”

“While I was there I learned about poverty, and I wanted to help them,” Sklar said. “I was amazed when I found out that if people didn’t have money they would not be treated at the hospitals.”

Sklar went back to the U.S. and finished his major. Subsequently he studied medicine at the same university.

After getting his medicine degree Sklar went to Sinaloa, Mexico, as a volunteer for six months.

“We (a group of Mexican doctors and him) established a little clinic on the area without a lot of money,” he said. “We figured it out that you don’t really have to be a doctor to help people on health problems, so we trained some settlers to help in the clinic.”
Sklar went back to the clinic four times in the following years.

After being a volunteer in Mexico, Sklar attended the University of California in San Francisco where he got his specialty in emergency medicine.

He was hired in Albuquerque in the Emergency Department in 1980 as a doctor. In 1993 he was appointed as the head of the emergency department

Sklar recalls both great and bad memories working on the ER.

“A 9-year-old girl had her tonsils operated. When she went home she started to bleed and her mom brought her to the hospital. She was almost dead when she got to the ER, she was having a cardiac arrest. Fortunately we saved her and after 15 minutes she started to shout “mommy, mommy.” We all were excited and happy,” he said.

Conversely Sklar recalled what he considered two of the worst episodes while working in the emergency department. The first one involved a kid who was accidentally run over by his father. “The father brought his son to the hospital, but we couldn’t save the kid. It was a terrible moment,” Sklar said.

The second bad episode was when a rescue helicopter went to Taos and crashed, leaving no survivors. “I knew all of the medics and nurses from the helicopter,” he said.

On July, Sklar will be the dean of graduate medical education.

“I will still work on the ER, but I will be more involved in teaching now,” he said. Sklar will be in charge for all the residents and people in training within the hospital.

Sklar said the benefits of this new job are that the schedule is better and he will be surrounded by students.

“I like working with students because it keeps you young as well,” he said.

Karl Uplegger said, “He is a good teacher. He is able to work with everyone. He has the advantage of speaking Spanish and be able to talk to every patient in the hospital.”

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