|
|
June 11, 1999/27 Sivan 5759, Vol. 51, No.37
Doctor brings expertise to Navajos
PATRICIA HARRIS
New Jersey Jewish News
Dr. Alan Burghauser (at right) treats Navajo patient Joseph Tosie during the physician's most recent visit to the tribe's northeastern Arizona reservation.
Photo by Alberta Wilson
|
Since he was a young boy, Alan Burghauser of Springfield, N.J., has been fascinated by Native American objects and lore. Now, as a physician specializing in diseases of the lungs, he is getting a chance to experience the Navajo culture up-close.
Burghauser, 47, in April returned from his third trip to the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona, where he has volunteered for a week at a time at the local private hospital. The pulmonologist has also organized a non-profit foundation in New Jersey to help the hospital get the equipment and supplies it needs.
His involvement in these activities springs from his desire to help the needy, and from his Jewish commitment to making a difference in others' lives.
"As I go back each time, I get a warmer welcome," Burghauser says, acknowledging the gratitude he is shown by staff members and patients at the Sage Memorial Hospital in the town of Ganado. "By now, I get the feeling that I'm home."
On his most recent trip, he said, he even had nurses come up to him and give him a hug, which is unusual for Navajos.
Burghauser, who is director of respiratory care at Bayonne Hospital, has convinced some of his fellow staff members to join him in going to the reservation to help. Ten critical care nurses and three doctors have volunteered and are now waiting for housing to be readied, Burghauser said.
The nurses are going in order to establish an intensive care unit in the hospital, the only non-governmental health facility serving the Navajo reservation, which spans 25,000 square miles of high desert.
Health care on the reservation is "sparse," as Burghauser describes it. People are brought from their homes to the hospital, often from a great distance, on dirt roads, by a fleet of four-wheel-drive vehicles.
When Burghauser comes to the reservation, he runs a pulmonary clinic, and often will see as many as 65 patients during the week he's there. On his most recent visit, he says, he treated a number of patients whose asthma was caused by smoke from the wood-burning stoves they use to heat their homes.
Burghauser, who is a trustee of Congregation Israel in Springfield, says he first got the idea to work at the hospital when he was in Santa Fe, N.M., two years ago for a medical conference. He visited the facility and spoke to the chief of medicine, who described the Navajos' plight.
He also toured the Navajo Nation Health Foundation's 45-bed hospital, which relies solely on grants from large foundations and financial contributions from individuals throughout the country. The hospital's facilities, rudimentary by standards of hospitals outside of the reservation, has no physicians specializing in disciplines such as cardiology, gastroenterology, neurology or oncology. But the staff has a "fighting spirit" and a strong desire to provide the local people with dedicated, loving care, says Burghauser.
"That's how it started. How it will end, I don't know," the doctor says, noting that he entertains the idea of moving out West permanently, once his three children are finished with their schooling.
This summer, he plans to take his family, including his wife, Rachelle, the nurse at the lower school of Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union in West Orange, N.J., to the reservation for two weeks.
Burghauser says he has benefited from learning about traditional Navajo beliefs and has brought some of that knowledge back to his practice. He spent a day with a traditional healer, called a singer, and was impressed with his concept of restoring balance and harmony in his patients.
"Very often the singer will come to the bedside and perform a ceremony for the patient," Burghauser notes. "He helps the person get through emotional and physical trauma."
Burghauser called his efforts working for the Navajos "a labor of love" that encompasses his love of nature and animals. And understanding the Navajos' respect for nature and their relationship to the land enriches his Judaism, he says.
"Seeing 3 million stars every night gives me inner peace," he adds.
Patricia Harris is a staff writer with the New Jersey Jewish News in Whippany, N.J.
|
