00:00:00.240 - 00:00:18.940

Okay. Good morning. Today is July 2nd, 2015. My name is chances later. On behalf of us, I'm a Proctor oral history program. Today we're here with Miss Carol Mayer. I'm talking about the Panama Canal Zone Re union. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview with us today, so we could please have your full name.

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And when and where were you born? I'm Carol Francis Mayer, and I was born in Maria Kentucky, day after my father graduated from Maria, uh, but lived most of my life up until I was a college age in Florida. And then I ended up in Georgia, went to medical school in Georgia, and, uh, first went to Panama.

00:00:48.030 - 00:01:29.140

Uh, when I answered an ad that said, they paid my way down and they paid my way back. And I was at that time of pediatric resident, uh, it's interesting that Gorgas hospital from the very beginning, even when it was income hospital under the direction of Dr Gorgas, had a internships programs there and that programming had expanded into residencies with, uh, several surgical specialties pediatrics, internal medicine, general surgery, orthopedics, uh, amongst others.

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And it uh, it's a pediatric resident. I was there in 1968 to 69 and at that time, I was the only pediatric resident, and I took call every other night. So I basically worked 36 hours, 12 off, which was not the best way to live. Uh, probably wasn't the best thing for patients either.

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I was the last resident ever do that. Uh, the next resident had done a general internship there, and he just told him he wouldn't stay unless he did Every third night, Uh, at that time, I had been offered a fellowship. So I went back to the United States and did a fellowship and stayed here on the faculty in my medical school.

00:02:20.930 - 00:03:19.250

Uh, and then, uh uh, there, opening and for staff in Panama came. And so I went back because I loved living there. I like to be warm, for one thing. And so when I went back, way started building up the program, and by the time the treaty went into effect, uh, we had five pediatric residents in nine staff, uh, had a really wonderful program going much better than the program When I went through it, because actually, having been in a academic setting previously, I already was a little ahead of the staff that were teaching me, Uh, except that, of course, we were seeing some of the tropical diseases that we didn't get in Georgia.

00:03:19.740 - 00:03:42.720

Although at that time, Georgia had did still have certainly a lot of the parasites and things, and we would see the same sorts of diseases that poverty brings on eso. It was, but it was really, really exciting. Time on way. We had a lot of things going.

00:03:42.730 - 00:04:11.690

For one thing, there was actually a branch of the National Institutes of Health called Middle America Research Unit that WAAS nearby the hospital and then down in Panama proper. Gorgas Memorial Laboratories was a joint effort us and Panama that studied tropical diseases. The N I H branch was sort of into studying hemorrhagic fevers.

00:04:11.700 - 00:04:37.470

Uh, other viral type diseases. Sometimes we would actually isolate the influenza virus. Uh, that was used to make the vaccine for the next year because people coming through the canal from the Southern Hemisphere's would already be in their winter and might have the new virus that was gonna spread out over the world for the rest of the time.

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And when I first went back, the chief of medicine and I participated in a, uh, infectious disease conference, which for which we studied the night before. Since neither of us were infectious disease people, I had done my fellowship in allergy and immunology s Way way had a lot of fun with that.

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And you utilize the people from both in the N I. H. Lab and from Gorgas Memorial Labs so way had a really good backup. And I would like to think it was extremely educational for the, uh, for the house staff way we had in in the canal zone.

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Uh, there, of course, were several other hospitals and kinds of hospitals. The military bases had their own infirmary. It's, uh, on at one time, the army during World War Two, Army military base actually had a full function hospital way, had a mental health hospital, and we had a leper seri um uh, the leprosy Syrian within a beautiful locations, sitting up on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the islands offshore.

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Uh, they could get lobster off the reef. I had, but, you know, people were even afraid to go out there with the leprosy. Is that contagious? But it was a resource for the infectious disease conference. And, uh, now they're building luxury hotels in those sites. For a while after the U.

00:06:22.350 - 00:06:56.890

S left, they had established a, uh, kind of an old folks home at the site of Policy Co. Which was the leprosy, Terry. Um, but the land was just too valuable to leave that way. And s o then, uh, there was a general hospital on the Atlantic side which had originally been a navy hospital called Coco Solo on and, uh, that was staffed with with all the specialties, but not many members.

00:06:56.900 - 00:07:36.400

There was only one pediatrician over there, for example, and they didn't have any of the subspecialties in internal medicine things. So we had when I first went down is a resident. We actually had one whole war devoted to tuberculosis theme. The chair of our chest clinic actually was also dean of the University of Panama School of Medicine and was in charge of a, uh, TB case finding and BCG vaccination program for the whole country.

00:07:36.410 - 00:08:18.550

And with the use of the BCG vaccination. Uh, tuberculosis and especially complicated tuberculosis really dropped off eso that that word was closed a time I went back in 1972. Eso uh it was really need to see that rapid, fairly rapid change. The U. S has never had tuberculosis as a big enough problem to do BCG vaccination on, and, uh, and so they don't even know exactly how toe handle people who've been vaccinated, which is I had a friend who called me.

00:08:19.340 - 00:08:37.380

She was in nursing school and they wanted to give her TV preventive medicine because her skin test was positive, she said. I keep telling them it's positive because of the BCG vaccination. So well, how positive is it? And she said, 12 millimeters and I said, Take your medicine.

00:08:37.390 - 00:08:59.130

That's not the BCG vaccination, because it would have been over the years she was given when she was born. So over the years it would have decreased maybe five millimeters and any time it went over 10. We consider that as evidence of exposure to tuberculosis and so uhh you might never have active TV.

00:08:59.130 - 00:09:26.350

But if you take, uh, six months or a year of a preventive medicine, then it uh, your chances of ever getting active disease are way down. It's interesting that both of my grandparent's, uh, on my mother's side developed TV. In their old age. My grandmother had nursed a brother who died in, uh, 1918.

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Probably he may also have gotten the influenza from that pandemic in 1918, but she didn't develop her active tuberculosis until she was, like 80 on. My grandfather was even later when he developed active TV. But with age, your immune system goes down in the immunity that had built up to contain the bacteria, uh, decreases and you get active disease.

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So, uh, there's so many illnesses now that we're preventing that doctors who are training in this day and time won't even be able to recognize him, such as the measles outbreak that they had in California this year. A lot of people don't know how the diagnose, especially early measles, because they just don't know the signs and symptoms of it.

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And and measles was something that we really the vaccine is prevented, and it's been great in the Indian type populations because they don't have a lot of natural immunity to it, and the virus would actually get in there ones, and they would die of respiratory failure.

00:10:43.580 - 00:11:11.290

Uh, not anything you could do about it, because we didn't have medications for that virus. Eso prevention always works better. E guests, the vaccination e want a backtrack a little because you've covered a lot. So I want to talk about So the year that you saw the flyer about the paid trip to Panama That's the same year that you got there.

00:11:11.300 - 00:11:38.950

Okay, So what were your first impressions of arriving to the Panama Canal zone like, What was that like? I think I knew a little bit about what to expect because my mother had actually been operated on at Gorgeous Hospital in 1955. They were living in Nicaragua and she developed a lump in her breast, went there for a biopsy on my brother and traveled down a couple of times.

00:11:38.960 - 00:11:59.460

I did not live with them when they were in Nicaragua. Did visit for about six weeks once. How are they? Well, my father was a professor of University of Florida, and at that time they had a contract with a 0.4 program, and so he basically went down to start some vocational education type programs in both.

00:11:59.640 - 00:12:25.720

Well, they started a boarding school in Managua, which lasted until the 1972 earthquake, when it fell down along with many other buildings, Uh, and then in the secondary schools kind of started arts and crafts programs. Uh, there. So they were there 2.5 years and, well, they were down there shortly before that.

00:12:25.720 - 00:12:49.800

Actually, the cars had come back from Honduras. Marjorie and, uh okay, Archie in Archie's car, and they had lived in our house. I think it was while my dad was getting his doctrine and we lived in our lake house. Eso uh, you know, we talked with them about their experiences in Honduras.

00:12:49.810 - 00:13:25.770

Uh, eso and my dad grew up on Indian reservations. His father was in the Indian service, so they were very excited to get a chance to go to Nicaragua. Yeah, it's amazing how they just they had that experience there. Oh, my God. You know what's even weirder is that after I retired from Panama, my father was going through his father's papers, and in 1996 he was actually offered a job in Panama his mother didn't want him to go that far away.

00:13:25.740 - 00:13:50.670

Eso that's when he went into the Indian service. A long family connection with that country. You know, you re eso I knew. Get back to the question. I have been to Nicaragua and so I knew that the weather and everything was about the same. To tell you the truth, when I got there immediately went on call.

00:13:50.680 - 00:14:15.820

And so it it was so hard that 1st 66 months anyway, uh, that I didn't get out a lot. Although I did have some friends who took me Tol via. And I got to see that very shortly after I got there, but it was out of learned rapidly that housing was a problem.

00:14:15.830 - 00:14:38.450

I went into Williams in place. Single family housing, which was basically units of 10 apartments per one wooden building. And they were like big screen porches. You had a living room at one end, a bedroom in the middle, uh, kitchen and a bathroom in the back.

00:14:39.440 - 00:15:15.450

And what we did Thio air condition. It was thio to put plastic over the screens on stick into the air conditioner eso out right by the time I left, those buildings have been torn down and they built some really nice count houses. But I had also made apartments in an old ward of the hospital and which had 2 ft thick concrete walls and originally had been the screens.

00:15:15.450 - 00:15:36.960

But they had put glass in where the screens were on centrally air conditioned these apartments. So I finally got transferred to one of those apartments which was made it much easier to. In fact, after six months, I was actually allowed to go to the apartment to take call at night instead of sleeping on the ward.

00:15:37.340 - 00:16:03.720

Eso uh, that was much better for my little dog. It was not used to be left load eso uh, yeah, poor Heidi. She was a dog suit and she had to go through quarantine twice. Well, according that Panama had didn't have Rabies at that time. They do now, Uh, and so they wanted longer quarantines.

00:16:03.720 - 00:16:30.940

But since the animals that came from the States were all immunized, they required that we would only do a one months quarantine in the way had a fairly nice veterinary clinic s o. They would they would stay there for the months and then be allowed toe, go to your home for the second time she went through that, she, uh was They put her down on the concrete floor.

00:16:30.940 - 00:16:47.660

That was wet, and she got all infected in her breasts. Eso They put her up in a cage next to a cat. She was allergic to the cat and got Duncan her eyes, and they wanted me to come out and put the drops in her eyes.

00:16:47.660 - 00:17:08.810

I said looked out. You know, I sort of like work 24 hours every other day every third day. E Well, then, because a lot of what we hear about the Panama canals amazing community that was there. But it seems like your first spirit. You were just working.

00:17:08.810 - 00:17:27.710

You didn't really get to be a part of that much of that. Well, towards the end, I did, Uh, the other people in Gorgas apartments on all of them were associated with the hospital s o. I met a couple. He was She worked for a department of Defense and he was canal zone.

00:17:27.710 - 00:17:53.540

Police and way are still best friends and their Children. I've known since they were born on uh, And then they had a wide circle of friends. It seems like by the time I came back in 72 most of my friends were in the police force because we had probably the highest paid, highest educated police force in the world.

00:17:53.540 - 00:18:27.800

A lot of them have master's degrees, uh, jurisprudence or something along those lines. And eso way would get together and have fun. And even and and then we had a hospital group also, uh, hand a lot of social activities going on. So when I came back, a staff remember, it was came right into knowing what facing and to having some friends already there and and that God expanded and was really, really a lot of fun.

00:18:27.810 - 00:18:48.210

So what type of social activities would you dio? Well, we would we would go into the interior to the beaches or to the mountains. The first three years I was back, I had a vote, and then I with the chief of medicine on his family. And so we did a lot of fishing on weekends.

00:18:48.220 - 00:19:09.790

Uh, usually no more than once a month, though. And when you have a boat that you only take out once a month and frequently isn't working. I finally learned my lesson. You know, you do not own the boat. You have friends with the boat e. Write that down along Florida.

00:19:09.790 - 00:19:29.850

Children think they have to have boats. E think never because I didn't move to Florida until I was 10. So for me and I don't have that compulsion, I'm scared of water, so Oh, no eso we fished. So as I sold the boat, though, I started bird watching.

00:19:30.240 - 00:19:50.550

And that was a lot easier. You just pick up your binoculars and go on. Panama is probably one of about the fourth best place in the world to bird watch because we have birds from the north that migrating birds from south and migrate plus a large number of tropical birds that never leaves.

00:19:50.840 - 00:20:14.960

Uh, and, uh and that was the whole group of a lot of my doctor friends, uh, were members, but then all kinds of other people, too. So I got a whole new circle of friends that way and way, but spend a lot of weekends we had, you know, when it came time for the treaty to be signed and was being discussed.

00:20:14.960 - 00:20:54.680

You know, we had a rule. We will not discuss the treaty. Well, we're bird way save. So you want to relax? Turn right. I was just the hospital. The work that it was only the zone Ian residents. I could go to the hospital. Well, actually, before the treaty, any employ of the canal operation or, uh and any US citizen employed by, like the embassy or other institutions could, uh, allowed Thio Come.

00:20:54.690 - 00:21:19.670

Uh, they kind of all had the same insurance we had. It was it still exists. It's a federal insurance plan for made especially for the canals. Uh, on people who still live in Panama Have that insurance to date A. So far as I know, uh, the way had teaching cases because we were teaching hospital.

00:21:20.040 - 00:21:41.610

We be lost Our teaching program after the treaty went into effect because we were no longer part of the United States, way became a military hospital in the military. Hospitals have teaching programs, but they didn't want to spare any of their slots to come down to Panama.

00:21:41.620 - 00:22:09.310

So, uh, that and that was very disappointing because the teaching program was an important part of of being there for me anyway. And we Can you describe the teaching program a little bit? Okay, um, the each department kind of had its own program for pediatrics. We had a morning report every morning.

00:22:09.310 - 00:22:36.660

We met about seven o'clock and discuss the patients on the ward. And if we were gonna be seeing something interesting in the clinic would discuss that, uh, the residents, because by that time, they really abolished the general internship. And so everybody was a resident. I would rotate through clinic duties, uh, nursery duties and war duties.

00:22:36.670 - 00:23:00.880

Eso, uh, they in the nursery when they built the new Gorgas Hospital. The nursery is on. This was on the seventh floor, and the windows looked out over all of Panama. They had the best view of the world for those little baby. Nice for you. Yeah, it's interesting that they noticed that they had much less yellow jaundice in the baby's.

00:23:00.880 - 00:23:22.280

This is something that happens to newborns. Uh, and we knew by then that light was a treatment for that. John does. And because there were the windows and more light, they just naturally started having less of the John does in the babies. I have a question.

00:23:22.280 - 00:23:39.180

So they're talking about about treatment with things like, I guess, local treatments for diseases they were using Panama. Would that be at all brought into the hospital? E I don't know that I don't know what the relationship was, but like the hospitals that were, you know, in the interior.

00:23:39.190 - 00:24:05.160

So, uh, uh, well, I started doing adult rheumatology towards the end because we didn't have a rheumatologist anymore. And I had actually moved out of the pediatric clinic enough into the adult chest clinic. Uh, and, uh, the, uh had an old Chinese slightly. He came in one day, and she said the only thing that helped her arthritis was tiger balm.

00:24:05.840 - 00:24:34.050

And so I said, Well, bring me some of that tiger ball, see what's in it on. The ingredient was basically cap space in, which is what makes peppers hot. Uh, and about a year later, they started publishing studies using caps Assassin in arthritis. And actually, it interferes with nerve transmission that does carries the pain impulses to the brain.

00:24:34.640 - 00:24:55.440

Eso It definitely works for pain. It doesn't do a lot for inflammation, so you have to add in something for inflammation. But it's an old Chinese remedy that we found really, really works. A lot of the kids would come in with asafoetida de bags around their bags and that stuff.

00:24:55.450 - 00:25:19.370

Thanks. I don't know whether kept germs away, but it would certainly keep people, uh, trying to think. Oh, yes. And the belly button hernias. Yeah. They would come in with a 50 cent piece taped over the hernia, which is down Thio give you infection in the building button.

00:25:19.340 - 00:25:46.570

Eso we got rid of that. That was not one that was useful Way had amongst the, uh, tropical diseases. Uh, leishmaniasis was fairly common. If you spend any time out in the streams and things around, uh, and that that was one of the diseases where the treatment was almost worse than the disease.

00:25:46.570 - 00:26:11.140

And so a lot of the three people, we would just let it take its natural course. Uh, and it would eventually heal on its own. Sometimes they got a form that would cause a perforation in the nose. And that would be something you might want Thio treat with the compounds that were approved for it at that time.

00:26:11.150 - 00:26:41.950

Fairly fairly. rare, though, and usually would be in a Panamanian and be in a teaching case way. Had we had some rare, really rare diseases. In fact, I saw one teaching case was sent in by a Panamanian doctor who had actually worked for a Panamanian Pan American health organization for a long time and had returned to Panama because to take care of her elderly parents because she was the only single one in the family.

00:26:42.040 - 00:27:10.660

Single women get stuck like that and she said, a child that she thought had heart congenital. Uh, general heart disease that had heart failure, Uh, was the kid had a huge heart, but she also had some big lift outs. And so we wait biopsy those and our pathologists that it looked like a lymphoma.

00:27:10.670 - 00:27:43.460

So we ran her through a course for lymphoma, and I, uh, she got better. But she also had some really interesting immunological deficits. On dso way sent her thio Texas Thio MD Anderson Really? To see for sure whether this was lymphoma, they decided it was not, and they sent her to Alabama for a work up of her immune system.

00:27:43.840 - 00:28:06.710

I found out she actually was a trisomy. Uh, she had three chromosomes in one of the places where the chromosomes went, Uh, but also had all these abnormalities in her immune system. And so then she actually ended up. We sent her to N i h for evaluation.

00:28:06.710 - 00:28:26.460

And you know, the final conclusion, Waas y'all she does not have lymphoma, but we don't know what she has. And she did fairly well on steroids, though it would control her anemia, which was there. It would cause the hard sides to go down. That would make the lymph glands go down.

00:28:26.840 - 00:28:51.970

And after then, when the treaty went into effect, we lost all the teaching cases. Anybody who was Panamanian, whether they lived in the canal zone or not, uh, lost their privileges. We had people who have been there for three generations, and all of a sudden they couldn't come to our hospital anymore, s O That was traumatic.

00:28:51.940 - 00:29:06.700

And we tried toe make that a smooth transition into town because because way knew all the doctors in town too. In fact, we trained a lot of what Can you tell us a bit about that your relationship with the doctors and kind of on the training.

00:29:06.710 - 00:29:28.210

Yeah, well, the let me finish about this, this kid first, she went downtown to one of, uh, way also had a couple of pediatricians who had private practices in town. Also, and, uh, when she got to be about 14, she was fine. Uh, and, uh, didn't have any more sentence.

00:29:28.210 - 00:29:59.950

Didn't need any more medicine. Years later, uh, they found a syndrome of deficiency in natural cell. Death on things is I'm sure what this kid had because she was a classic, classic case. She also had hepatitis, so she probably later got cancer, uh, from hepatitis, but so I lost track of her after that.

00:30:00.340 - 00:30:39.550

But anyway, it's interesting that Gorgas started a medical association called Medical Association of the Isthmian Canals on Amazed E. And here, uh, there was no There were no other organizations really in Panama at that time. And so a lot of Panamanian physicians were members, even though they weren't on the staff.

00:30:39.560 - 00:30:59.810

And, uh, the hospital, uh, they're in the help. The Health Bureau, as it was called, uh, eso We have very good relationships, and I said them through the years we had trained many of the physicians there. Some of them had gone on to the states to do sub specialization and had come back to Panama.

00:30:59.820 - 00:31:22.960

And then a Panama started its medical school. And we would also take the medical that when they graduated from that medical school, they were eligible to come into our training programs. So they then had a United States training program and eso it worked out. A lot of those people are in the United States now.

00:31:22.970 - 00:31:50.060

They became U. S citizens because they many different reasons, you know, they wanted to bring their Children to the states so they could go to school here or they knew they could make more money here. Uh, but still, we've had people whose physicians who stayed in Panama, one who Stanford University with loved I have on their faculty.

00:31:50.070 - 00:32:18.980

But he and his wife agreed that the quality of life for their Children was so much better in Panama that they would stay in Panama. And I think their Children eventually went to college in the States. But e think the fact that when quality of life is more important than making a lot of money definitely was a a important decision Thio to stay in Panama.

00:32:18.990 - 00:32:39.360

And that was after the canal treaty. Um, some of this waas, but not all of it. A lot of it Waas uh, but yeah, we had to orthopedics who left after the tree that were trained there in our orthopedic residency program. And they are in practice in Dade County.

00:32:39.840 - 00:33:16.330

Uh, s 01 of our pediatrician's in an internist who are married to each other came to the south Florida area and actually, the fellow who's a place that I took, uh, on the staff, he moved to the States. At that point on, hey, was he was from Panama, But he had trained in the States, and he went on a medical school faculty in the States on had was very instrumental in another one of the centennial celebrations, uh, that they had in the United States.

00:33:16.340 - 00:33:48.690

Uh, Thio, get that going in a library and sit Arkansas Midwest somewhere. Uh, and so, yeah, that's a but s. So we did always have a close relationship in many Panamanian positions were members of our organization. The other thing is that, uh, the, uh, Panamanians, when they did form their own associations some of their.

00:33:48.700 - 00:34:24.610

It's interesting. In Latin America, physicians frequently become presidents of their country. Of course, the most famous one in Panama was our beautiful arias, who was elected four times and never completed a term it very politically oriented. Another physician was Hugo Spatafora, who went fought with Commandant zero in the, uh, Nicaraguan war and then was beheaded on orders of Noriega.

00:34:24.620 - 00:34:53.050

Uh, when he passed back into Panama. Uh, gosh, I don't remember what year that waas, but it was probably about 86 or seven. Just one of the people that Noriega was responsible for doing away with. It's not a nice man. Hey, he's still in prison in Panama now.

00:34:53.840 - 00:35:16.140

Yeah, I think, um, it was something in Bavaria. I'm not sure. The one toe under the students that were doing the revolution. I think it was a medical school. Sure you remember. E think physicians of frequently been very politically ordinated. We've had some of the United States to, but not a lot they never had.

00:35:16.140 - 00:35:38.130

One is president. So no, everything is they're much more likely elected women. Two things I know that the their pediatric society, when I was back in 68 had a woman president. Uh, I don't know how long it waas before the Academy of Pediatrics. The United States have a woman president.

00:35:38.140 - 00:36:04.820

So in the hospital was there's an equal number of women than male staff professionals working there. No much more men. Okay, we only had to Yeah. Two out of the nine physicians and pediatrics for women. One of well, both of them were trained because I had a year of training there, and Lucid had three years of training.

00:36:04.820 - 00:36:30.550

There s O and all the men. We There also was always the relationship with the military. And most of the chiefs of departments were active duty military. They did not wear their uniforms. And the canal zone government paid them while they were at gorgeous or wherever they were in the whole system.

00:36:31.030 - 00:37:02.330

Uh, which was very nice for the military. Uh, cut their budget on. And the head of the Health Bureau was usually a colonel, just like the governor of the Kanal Za was usually a general, and he was also the president of the Panama Canal Company s o that tripartite arrangement there eso uh the they rotated about every three months.

00:37:02.330 - 00:37:43.820

So achieved. But pediatrics that had a civilian chief which was an ophthalmology for a long time, had a civilian chief. Eso There were some, uh, civilians that had administrative positions, but usually it was military rotating through. Uh, now, none of the house staff were military. They were all civilians on, uh, so they that we had back to the question off what the programs did, Uh, in addition to morning report, we had every for the whole hospital.

00:37:43.820 - 00:38:09.650

Every Wednesday afternoon was a training afternoon, and we had in all services conference, uh, way would frequently have consultants down from the United States, and they would give talks at those, uh, Gorgas and at Coco Solo Hospital. And we had very prominent people like Satan, uh, polio vaccine and, uh, pediatric sit.

00:38:09.650 - 00:38:40.050

Jealous? Who was wonderful theory. Versatile man. He read a lot and was very well known in pediatrics. Uh, Dr Cahill and internal medicine was a diabetic specialist. Uh, we had a neurologist named Task Water, which was interesting, but way would usually have our medical association meeting, and they would give a talk there, too.

00:38:40.520 - 00:39:02.630

Way wore, wore them out. Actually, one guy did die while I was there. So Hey, you you worked on and staff and Panama on the in the United States as well. Well, yes. I mean, when I came back, came back to the United States. I went back on faculty at the Medical College of Georgia.

00:39:02.640 - 00:39:28.390

Where I've gone to school is what I wanted to ask was like, How would you compare practicing medicine in Panama to practice and in the United States? Um, you know, in Panama it seemed to be much more cooperative. When you're in a really academic situation in in the United States, you're people are almost competing with their research projects and patients.

00:39:28.390 - 00:39:52.980

You know, it's your patients and my patients instead of our patients. And I had a little trouble getting used to that, actually, eso the whole. The whole sense of working in Panama was so cooperative because everybody was really working through for one goal to efficiently put ships through the canal.

00:39:52.990 - 00:40:21.430

Even though you were in medicine, you were keeping families healthy, keeping the pilots healthy, uh, keeping the foreign sailors healthy, actually, foreign sailors who got sick going through the when they hit the canal. Uh, lots of times. It was mental health breakdowns, and they would be escorted back to their country of origin by a physician.

00:40:21.810 - 00:40:55.040

Uh, my boss love to do that. Hey, was Greek. Thanks. Way had a problem that we couldn't take care of. The patient would get medevacked. Usually it was That was much easier if they were active duty military. It was a little frustrating because to medevac, a patient, we had to send copies of all their records and write a summary when we would get them back to take care of them.

00:40:55.910 - 00:41:14.940

Nobody required him come back with a summary. So we had a lot of trouble figuring out what had happened to it while they were in the state. Uh, when we said teaching cases, this we got because they went to civilian hospitals, military hospitals, we got very good.

00:41:15.310 - 00:41:43.600

Sorry is back. But I never quite understood that. Why they were required to have it ready when the when the patient left to come back. Yeah, and, uh, resolved. That s o e. Found it interesting that you said that the whole pine McNall's on the orders were to get the ships to the canal So it's very much like, even though you bring the civilian section, it was still military.

00:41:43.600 - 00:42:11.480

Basically all of it. Yeah. Your orders. Yeah. Way. Uh, although the pilots, of course, were civilian and they were the elite, they made the highest salary. Uh uh. But, uh, that was an important job. Get those ships through. Uh, really interesting with the new, larger canal.

00:42:11.490 - 00:42:33.350

Yeah, they're trying to build. I read about that because they're using different approaches. We're getting the ship's in and things, and people seem to feel that the wind will become much more important towards they. Can you e don't remember exactly how I guess they're going to go in under their own power.

00:42:33.360 - 00:42:56.260

Uh, and I don't know whether they'll have the guidance of the mules locomotives that they use, but, uh, it's gonna be very interesting to see how it works. The good thing is that they're working on conserving water, and so they don't take it's much water to put the big ships through anything.

00:42:56.260 - 00:43:24.710

You have a recovery method. That's quite yeah. Water's water is getting scarce everywhere you said. So a girl moving to California. Oh, yeah. That's not real smart. you wanna do that? I start the contract. I'm kind of stuck now, e. But because you have mentioned about that descending on the treaty in 77 in that whole transition period, you I guess explain.

00:43:24.710 - 00:43:43.400

What was that what that was like, You know, losing, I guess. The status trying to prepare people for it because it sounds like it was a very big thing. Yeah, well, it waas you know, it was a loss of a way of life on my personal feeling, waas that it needed to be done.

00:43:44.100 - 00:44:21.260

Carter was right on the treaty wasn't all that different from one that had been written after the riots in 1964. And yet it took another 10, 15 years before it was finalized. And there were many things in the treaty that caused a lot of apprehension, uh, loss of certain privileges and get in the implementing the implementing legislation for the treaty.

00:44:21.270 - 00:44:50.030

Waas much more important, uh, than the treaty itself for preserving our special privileges way. We had very special privileges. Leave, for one thing, was extremely generous. Uh, going back to no air conditioning and having to live in a horrible place which we all knew it was wonderful place, but way had we did not have sick leave.

00:44:50.040 - 00:45:10.500

And I think this is a new excellent idea. Because what you do then is you save your maximum number of hours of leave time to cover you if you get sick, and then you could use all your leave, and then it's scheduled. You aren't calling it sick because you want to go somewhere that day?

00:45:10.590 - 00:45:31.490

Uh, not that we would have done that anyway. You also want your truly dedicated stuff. Yeah, it was an interesting And, of course, we had a probably the only socialized society in the world. And if you didn't, uh, you know, if you didn't conform in, behave yourself.

00:45:31.500 - 00:45:55.300

You were shipped out and you could be shipped out almost overnight. The whole family if they got into drugs or something. And eso you did not keep your miss sense usually depending on their training. I guess, uh, the and we, you know, housing was provided, but it was dependent upon the size of your family.

00:45:55.310 - 00:46:28.600

And upon the years of service, I actually thought they brought in some double wide mobile homes to put on some pads that had had old frame houses that termites had finally gotten, I guess. Uhh! And after, well, three or four years of living in gorgeous apartment because I lived there When I went back, Thio I bought one of the mobile homes and, uh, they were really nice on.

00:46:28.610 - 00:46:45.440

And I lived there for over 10 years, and then I new things were coming near the end. So Well, in fact, the Army when the army took over, that's just kind of an example. It costs me about $50 rent on the pad to pay the Pan Canal.

00:46:45.450 - 00:47:12.390

Well, when the army took over, they were charging me something like $320 a month to live in my own place. Uh, and so I said to heck with because at my pay scale, I if I lived out on the economy, I would only have to pay $120 a month with my own money.

00:47:12.400 - 00:47:34.570

And the military would pay up to 17,000 year s u S o. Just about the time all the turmoil in Panama started in 1987 I moved downtown and, uh, it was I loved living living downtown, you know, you could walk. The fruit market was across the street.

00:47:34.570 - 00:48:00.000

There were two Bay Cruise, Uh, all these restaurants and shops and things within walking distance. But of course, it was also a time when they were rioting. And sometimes I had drive over burning rubber tires. Thio get home. And one day we were walking the dogs and went downhill, and all of a sudden I started coughing.

00:48:00.000 - 00:48:19.330

And fortunately I was with somebody who knew what tear gas is like. God, he says, Tear gas is heavy. It settles, Let's go uphill on. Then, another time we were walking the dogs and, uh, what you heard, You know, either fireworks or gunshots. I had trouble telling the difference.

00:48:19.340 - 00:48:41.420

The dogs could tell the difference. They dragged us back to the apartment. You learned all sorts of interesting things, like I had never thought. What belted the steel belts and tires look like they look like giant springs after the tire has burned. There were these giant springs all over the street.

00:48:42.080 - 00:49:23.100

You tangled up in them. And, you know, the one night that dogs dragged us back in, there was probably some of Noriega's goons with Vallejo was a pretty opposition neighborhood, and they were just driving around the neighborhood, shooting into the air. Uh, fortunately, we're aiming for anyone, but the way everybody would go out in the balconies to see what was going on, wonder if somebody accidentally Gish Oh, God, that that sounds like something s O after the treaty was signed.

00:49:23.100 - 00:49:51.300

77. So what was did your job change at all of us is to the same that what changed was the loss of the teaching program way The implementing legislation preserved all of our privileges. Uh, pretty much the military started wearing their uniforms and the army had to pay not only them, but because we are function was we were called tops.

00:49:51.300 - 00:50:17.580

Transfer of function. Um, functions were transferred to the army. Uh, also. Well, the police were abolished on, and so we became under in peace, and the schools were transferred to Department of Army. Uh, so the services were what were transferred. The rest stayed with the pan Canal commission.

00:50:17.560 - 00:50:47.540

Uh, on eso we became somewhat divided. A cto who we worked for on that with that went privileges. Uh, we lost housing. But were people working for the military lost housing? They didn't affect me because I would send my mobile home. But they charged me more and we kept post office privileges.

00:50:47.550 - 00:51:07.770

But the Pan Canal people did not keep post office privileges. A lot of people were married and once house work for the Army and the other work for panning out commission, so they had no problems at all. On that was how most people work that out on eso.

00:51:08.160 - 00:51:35.800

They didn't make much difference for me, did. For people with families, I think make a kind of a big difference to lose commissary privileges on that sort of thing. Although about them Panama had, you know, really good stores and things grocery stores. And there was they may have been a little more expensive than some things, but not, you know, you could if you cook from scratch.

00:51:35.810 - 00:51:59.680

A lot of people had a maid who did that. And you don't need Thio to buy all the canned goods and stuff that might have been more expensive. So how long did you stay living upon Reduce? Who lived right now? Now we should wait. Actually, I lived I left in 89 because they evacuated me.

00:52:00.350 - 00:52:28.800

What did you do that they evacuated you? Actually, they were getting ready to invade, okay? And so they didn't want any people living downtown, And, uh, but they didn't have housing to give us. So they sent our household goods all back to the United States. Uh, there were a few people that they families, few families that they could give housing thio.

00:52:28.810 - 00:53:03.230

But they single people they wanted to put up in houses together, like four women to a house on, uh, they wanted me to be out in Gamboa, which would have meant traveling 15 miles back and forth. Were very spoiled about short distances on De. So I moved in with a friend family and for But since it's in all my stuff back to the states and everything I said, Well, I guess they're trying to tell me to retire eso I could at that point.

00:53:03.240 - 00:53:31.980

And so I retired and left October 1st, 1989 before we invaded in December. Uh, that was really traumatic, because the morning that we invaded thes same friends that I made when I first moved down there with police. And, uh, Department of Defense called me to tell me that one of our good friends had been killed.

00:53:32.750 - 00:53:56.830

Uh, and they were going driving home on an approved road because that by then we had all these alerts and places where you could go places where you couldn't go, Uh, some military people who were ours across the road and raped the car with gunfire and, uh, killed candy.

00:53:56.840 - 00:54:32.250

She was a teacher of exceptional Children, gifted Children. I'm sorry. Further department events, schools and her husband worked for Pinker. Now on S O. That was That was very traumatic on then. Even watching the televised, the funeral and everything. Uh, so she had a She was dual national, but because she had been born there, but still, it was sad they get There were two Americans killed in the canal area.

00:54:32.260 - 00:54:52.100

One was a student who had been a party. They had a big party that night in one of the town sites for kids that were home from college. And he was leaving that party, and there was a roadblock, and all the roadblocks previously had been Panamanian, so he ran it.

00:54:52.110 - 00:55:19.520

Which is probably what I would have done. And it was us soldiers who killed him because it was the US roadblock. Uh, the general populace in the canal area, of course. Didn't know about the invasion. I'm sure Noriega, uh but I had a friend who worked for a budget office and she had told way were actually living with this family.

00:55:19.620 - 00:55:35.580

And she told the kids and two of those kids were home on break for Christmas. Uh, she told them they could go to the movie, but they had to be home by 10 because she knew were from where she worked, that something was gonna happen that night.

00:55:36.240 - 00:55:59.750

And it's it would've been so much neater if we could have figured out a way to do that without killing a lot of people because it was a least 500 Panamanians, uh, they some people same or probably not because there were no mass graves. So have you visited since you left many times?

00:55:59.750 - 00:56:17.460

Yes. I was down last year ago February for a health care over union group of the nurses and some of the doctors all got together and went down and, uh, and then met with some of the people that still live there. We've done that a couple of times, which is really fun.

00:56:17.830 - 00:56:38.250

And then I have a friend who goes back and forth all the time. She owns an apartment down there, too. And so way go down. Goof off. E guess her mother had her 1/100 birthday down down for that once. I went for a wedding and going to a funeral to I was only there.

00:56:38.250 - 00:57:05.340

Three days s eso just say are like your your impressions about the zone. Now, since you left. Now, um, you know, their parts of it that looked very much the same on but they're rapidly turning those over and, uh, have large areas of what they call the reverted areas, uh, that are for sale.

00:57:05.330 - 00:57:29.240

Really large prices for development. Uh, and so it's really it's fun to drive around the old town sides. My mobile home was still there for Oh, I guess 10, 12 years. But the last two times I've been down there, it was removed in a house has been built there, uh, and but some of the mobile homes were still there.

00:57:29.250 - 00:58:09.820

But Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute on some of them, okay? And they still have separate contracts with Panama. And they have some housing and Gamboa and some housing on, uh, the island, Uh, in the middle of Gatun Lake, where they have a lab. Yes. So that's, uh and what it was my friends who worked with First Smithsonian apparently got married and built up by bed and breakfast out in the Sarah Sewall, which is not very high mountain area to the east of Panama City.

00:58:10.410 - 00:58:33.960

More down near the the during a jungle out. It's down Oh, a few years ago to go toe to dairy and to burn because I very near the Colombian border, like I was joking. I said, You know, GPS as were over in the Colombian border. Uh huh, That's funny.

00:58:33.970 - 00:58:50.530

E. I only have a couple more questions, actually. So E wanted it asked What's so special about these reunions, even after leaving a couple of days? Because you're still keep coming back and you keep trying to stay in touch and all these different various reunions at you're participating.

00:58:50.530 - 00:59:09.080

What was so special about it? Single friends and accept that now that I'm involved with the museum, Uh, That's the main reason I'm In fact, I'm leaving this afternoon after our museum meeting. Because Fourth of July is a big deal with where I live. Thio got a house full of people.

00:59:09.090 - 00:59:45.640

Get up there and make sure they don't ruin it. My niece never seems Have taught anybody to close the door. Turn off the light. Oh, God. My mother would tell us about that, right? Yeah, they're getting better eso But it's the whole purpose of the museum waas to try to preserve some of the feeling of that American era because it was a unique experience.

00:59:45.650 - 01:00:22.880

Uh, I assume there have been isolated of groups of ex patriots that do form a similar society, but they don't have the singularity of purpose. Perhaps that we had, uh I would imagine that some of the old British colonies, maybe we're similar, but it z probably the only American colony way that had a purpose.

01:00:22.880 - 01:00:46.530

Anyway, Andi and I wanna after you retired and you moved here to the United States. What? What did you do? Have you been doing with your life? Yeah, well, I was on the faculty. Okay. Medical College of Georgia, for I went. I was gonna stay only three years because I already had worked there for 10 years before I even went to medical school and I worked all the way through medical school.

01:00:46.810 - 01:01:20.090

Hmm. But I ended up staying 11. Wow. A tragic Yeah. Just seemed Well, yeah, this is so bad. Yeah, s a old friends there too. Eso uh I did not plan toe leave Augusta as soon as I ended up doing because somebody offered cash for my house there.

01:01:20.100 - 01:01:50.640

Really wanted it. And so, uh, okay. Eso actually lived on Ray's Creek, which goes into the national golf course where they play the Masters tournament. Right? Okay. S o that was, you know, fun. And I was running actually my basement Thio couple of zone ians who had tickets to the Masters that didn't have parking permits, which was so they could walk from my house up to the course.

01:01:50.650 - 01:02:08.940

They really hated it when I saw the house. E eso uh but I'm glad I in retrospect, I'm glad I came back because about a year and a half later, my mother died. And then the year after that, my father died, and six months After that, my brother died.

01:02:08.950 - 01:02:33.950

Eso I've been left responsible for the family home. Uh, so where do you live now? I live well, I have a I have a condo in Gainesville. But the family home that's in trust for my niece and nephews is between Melrose and Keystone Heights. It's been kind of fun coming back to Gainesville.

01:02:33.960 - 01:02:59.540

I I almost feel like old Gainesville because we first moved to Gainesville in 1946 after World War Two. I actually left in 1955 when I got married on Didn't really come back to 2001. But when I get it was really, really old. People get out, We know the same people, same gossip.

01:02:59.540 - 01:03:24.970

That's very old. A second. You just e just you so young. It doesn't seem like you e just just not. You know, I've interviewed a couple of over two bad I'm like, no e Oh, but my mom she was 91 when she fell and that, you know, it went downhill after that.

01:03:24.980 - 01:03:48.870

But she felt because she was rushing in to do the laundry, she didn't have to do the laundry. Eso uh, she was still very useful Thio. Great runs in her jeans. Okay, So my last question is, if you could describe your experience living in the zone in one word, what would it be and why?

01:03:48.880 - 01:04:29.460

Yes, Security. So I like that security. Okay. Yeah. Security. Okay, because I behave myself and I was planning on getting kicked out. Uh huh. A lot of committees there. Thanks to s O. Of course, that was That's the other thing. When you, you know, in the hospital that we had infectious, I was head of the infectious Disease Committee and we had a foster Home committee way Our original pediatric chief didn't really think there was such a thing as child.

01:04:29.470 - 01:04:52.650

Is eso uh, it was a struggle for actually. We had somebody had gotten her man and masters degrees in public health and ran the well baby clinics on. She, uh, started the Foster home program, and a whole child abuse reporting program in the military had a really good set up for it.

01:04:52.660 - 01:05:21.320

Okay. And most of our military, actually, because you have these poor women that came down with their soldier husband, they frequently had to live on the economy. They didn't speak Spanish, and they felt kind of trapped with their kids. Eso there probably wasn't a lot of child abuse, except perhaps for spanking on that sort of thing in amongst the canals of community.

01:05:21.690 - 01:05:37.230

Uh, that concludes my questions. E really enjoyed it. Uh, well, this concludes this interview.