Dr. David Sklar, University of New Mexico associate dean of graduate medical education, will deliver a book talk on his memoir, La Clínica: A Doctor’s Journey Across Borders, Monday, Oct. 6 from 4-6 p.m. on UNM’s north campus, Domenici Building, 1001 Stanford NE 87131, room 2112.
Sklar’s journey began after a long night in an Albuquerque emergency room where two young gang members have died of stab wounds. Sklar arrives at home to find packed boxes. His wife was leaving him. He tries for hours to sleep, but his mind rDavid Brookshire. On the verge of burn-out and a personal crisis, Sklar decides to go back to the place where he first decided to be a doctor: Mexico.
In the memoir, Sklar recounts days pulling teeth, tending sick babies, and reassuring patients in broken Spanish in an understaffed, underfunded Mexican clinic in the foothills of the Sierra Madre.
It’s 1972, and Sklar, a 21-year-old who had been accepted to Stanford Medical School, writes a letter to Dr. Carl Wilson, the founder of La Clínica. When he receives an invitation to volunteer, Sklar travels to Mexico with only working knowledge of suturing.
Wilson becomes Sklar’s mentor and the young student admires the humanitarian doctor despite shocking revelations of some unsavory parts of Wilson’s personality that bring his teacher’s near-God image falling back down to earth. The sometimes unsettling power dynamics of a caregiver’s role is an important lesson for the young idealist.
In a place where people believe in powerful spirits, La Clínica straddles the spirit world, where witches and evil eye cause illness, and a modern world where microorganisms and antibiotics rule.
Much of the staff at the clinic lack medical degrees, and Sklar learns on the job; to identify illnesses, he consults the book Differential Diagnosis, and to treat them, Current Therapeutics. But nothing prepares Sklar for his first death: a diabetic musician whose eerie songs filled the air…until his death brings silence.
Sklar is even less prepared for the woman who enters La Clínica claiming to have a frog in her stomach. When she leaves placated with an amulet with valiums inside, Sklar achieves the proper balance of folk healing and common smarts that will endure long after his term in Mexico ends.
A poignant memoir that reminds readers how personal and unique are the experiences that bring happiness, La Clínica: A Doctor’s Journey Across Borders is the first volume in the new Literature and Medicine Series from the University of New Mexico Press.
Sklar served for many years as the chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at UNM Health Sciences Center. La Clínica is Sklar’s first book.
Sklar’s presentation features both a lecture and slide show featuring photographs taken during his time in Mexico at La Clínica.
UNM Bookstores will be on hand to sell copies of La Clinica for the book signing following the lecture. This event is sponsored by UNM Bookstores. For more information, contact Lisa Walden, 277-7494 or lwalden@unm.edu.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu