For the first time since its founding in the 1950’s, Cruz Roja Delegacion Chapala has a native English speaker on staff as the clinic’s medical director. Dr. Sam Thelin – a U.S. citizen fluent in fn Spanish – took up the post just over one year ago. He recently agreed to sit down to chat with the Reporter’s Dale Hoyt Palfrey about his career and life story.
Actually, there wasn’t a whole lot of sitting down during the encounter. It was a typical Saturday evening at the Red Cross, so it turned into an opportunity for the affable physician to show off keen skills for multi-tasking as he bounced between tending to patients and other duties, still keeping the conversation rolling without ever losing his train of thought.
When we arrived he was keeping a close eye on a teenager recovering from a severe allergic reaction to a bee sting and another who had just been bandaged up after a car crash. Others eventually trickling into the sick bay included a fellow hurt by falling off a horse, and ya oung couple whose screaming baby was diagnosed with acute tonsillitis. Then ambulance medics brought in a family of three picked up after their motorcycle collided with a car. Luckily none seemed to be seriously injured, but as they were rolled in to the x-ray unit that was our signal to call it quits. By that time we had covered a lot of ground in the Q & A.
Where and when were you born?
I was born in Jamestown, in western New York. My birthday is November 15. I’d rather not say what year.
Tell us something about your childhood and how you got interested in a medical career.
I grew up in Pennsylvania. I studied and worked in Dallas, Texas after moving there at age 18. I’ve always had a great curiosity about how things work. When I was 8, I wanted to be a race car driver. Straight out of high school I went to work for 10 years, mostly rebuilding cars. But I had a lot of other interests, including things related to my own health. I finally decided to go to college, with plans to go on to medical school. I graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas with a degree in biology.
So how did you end up in Mexico?
I enrolled in the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara (UAG) medical school, with the intention of following the Fifth Pathway, a program created by the American Medical Association that allowed students who go to med schools abroad to complete clinical and residency training back in the U.S. and become eligible for a license to practice there. I was two years away from finishing the UAG’s four year academic curriculum when the AMA pulled its support from Fifth Pathway. So I stayed to do my internship in Guadalajara and complete the social service requirement to get a diploma. I did the year of social service in the small town of Tamazula, south of Mazamitla. It’s a rural community of about two hundred people with a nice big health center. The head doctor and staff nurse, who was pregnant at the time, were hardly ever there, so I gained a lot of experience.
And what brought you to Chapala?
Well, I could have gone back to the states, but I really don’t have strong family ties there. Most American grads of the UAG don’t end up practicing medicine. They take jobs in pharmaceuticals or other health related business fields. But my whole reason for going to med school was to become a doctor. I found out they needed doctors here at Cruz Roja. The financial rewards aren’t great, but I got hooked on the opportunity to help so many people and deals with all kinds of ailments. Cruz Roja really needs more doctors, but most won’t take the job because of the long hours, low pay and high level of responsibility involved.
What do you do for fun in your spare time?
I still tinker at restoring cars. I enjoy running, biking and physical work-outs at the gym. I’m definitely not into spectator sports.