Roberta Duhaime
At
the time of the following interview,
Roberta A. Duhaime,
Kahnawake Mohawk, DVM, was a veterinary medical officer
with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA),
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS),
Veterinary Services. She is still with the USDA, now as a
tick epidemiologist working on the United States-Mexican
border. In 1995 when the Murray Federal Building was
bombed, she was working at the Oklahoma State Department of
Health and had to deal with unanticipated tragedies and
challenges.
The Adventures of a Veterinarian
What
was your path in becoming a veterinarian?
I was born in
1957 in the early days of space travel, so when I was a kid
I wanted to be an astronaut, a veterinarian, or an artist.
I always had either a cat or a dog.
My mother is Kahnawake Mohawk, and our reservation is in
Canada. My father is French with ancestry from Canada. I
grew up both on the reservation and in Queens, New York.
When my sister and I got out of school for the summer in
New York, my dad would drive us to up to Kahnawake the
reserve. We’d be there until school started again.
At Queens College, I majored in anthropology. Being Indian,
I was interested in how people think in different cultures.
At that time I didn’t know how I would use this major, I
just wanted to do something that I was interested in.
When I graduated, I had a bunch of different jobs, such as
Girl Scout Troop service director and New York City urban
park ranger. Although I always had an interest in becoming
a veterinarian, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to spend all
the time in school that it would take to become one. After
working at various nonpermanent jobs that I liked, such as
a naturalist trainee with the Audubon Society, I decided
that I might as well be prepared to apply to vet school. I
didn’t have the right prerequisites for vet school, so I
took a job as a part-time Customs Officer at JFK Airport
while I made up the classes I needed.
Eventually I applied to the New York College of Veterinary
Medicine (at Cornell University) and was accepted. But I
didn’t have the money to attend, so I wondered, “Now what
do I do?” I did lots of research about funding sources and
was able to find enough financial aid.
I went to vet school for the fun of it. I enjoyed it, but
didn’t go necessarily to end up working as a private
practice veterinarian at a vet clinic. A lot of other
students were stressed because their family wanted them to
be a vet. I didn’t have that pressure. At that time not
many people in my family had graduated from college. My
sister was the first one in my immediate family to earn a
college degree.
At vet school, I was fascinated with everything. First I
thought I’d like to be a Wildlife vet, so I joined the
student Wildlife Vet Association. I also joined the student
club for people who were interested in international
medicine. In fact, I joined everything.
Did you work summers during vet school?
Yes, every
summer I had a job. I always chose something that was fun
and allowed me to spend time outside – or at least outside
of an office. The first summer I went back to the U. S.
Customs work. I made good money and enjoyed the people.
The second summer I tried to get a scholarship from
Expanding Horizons, a program designed to help vet students
explore something different. I wanted to work on a
reservation. Initially the people in the program rejected
my proposal. But I kept looking for money. Finally the dean
came up to me and said, “You’re spending too much time
looking for financial aid for this project. I’m giving you
the money.”
I worked on the Navajo reservation with the Navajo
Livestock Program both in Window Rock and in Tuba City.
Then for a week I worked with a vet on the Hopi
reservation. Being from the Eastern U.S., I was used to
seeing mainly dairy farms. Around Navajo there were huge
beef ranches as well as sheep flocks. While we were doing
herd healths (vaccinating the animals, etc.), the owners
branded the cattle and sometimes castrated them.
The guys I worked with taught me some Navajo language. When
I went home and spoke Navajo words, my aunts said, “You
know more Navajo than Mohawk.” So I said, “Teach me.” I’m
still not fluent in Mohawk, but I’m getting there.
The third summer I went by myself to Africa. I went out to
the farms with people from the vet school in Kenya. I
learned that in Kenya they don’t have things for human
hospitals that we have here for vet hospitals. The people
are tribal people. They may be poor in some material
things, but they are rich in culture, in community, and in
relationships with other people,
My motto was “Create your own reality.” When I graduated
from veterinary school, I had already had many different
work experiences. In the Journal of
the American Veterinary Medical
Association, I saw an ad
for a USDA [United States Department of Agriculture]
veterinary position. My prior experiences that I had
participated in—just because I enjoyed them—actually helped
me be more qualified for this position.
Some other students were shocked that I only applied for
one job. At the panel interview for the USDA, APHIS [Animal
and Plant Health Inspection Service] job, I was asked,
“Where else are you applying?” I told the interviewers that
this was the only job that I wanted. I got the job.
Where
did you work?
I started in
New York State as a veterinary medical officer trainee.
Then I went to West Texas for 3 years. I got tired of
driving around because I had a huge area to cover. There
are always opportunities in this agency, so I applied for
the EIS (Epidemic Intelligence Service) through the CDC
(Center for Disease Control).
EIS is a very prestigious program in human medicine as well
as veterinary medicine.
Our agency
usually sends one or two people a year for EIS training.
You’re assigned to the CDC for 2 years, but you can also do
that time in a state health department. I decided to do my
time at the Oklahoma State Department of Health in Oklahoma
City. I was still employed by my agency, but every day I
worked at the Oklahoma Department of Health. And I went
back and forth to Atlanta (where the CDC is located) for
training.
I was in Oklahoma City at the health department when the
Oklahoma City bombing happened. My USDA fellow employees
had an office in the Murrah Building. Most of them died. I
was going to go over to the Murrah building at 9 AM that
day to discuss a study that I was working on with a USDA
colleague, but I didn’t get there. The bomb exploded at
9:02 AM. I didn’t know who was dead or alive.
That
must have been awful.
I worked with
the CDC and the Injury Prevention Service Division of the
Oklahoma State Department of Health on the human injuries
and deaths (epidemiology) of the event. First off, the CDC
wasn’t sure how to find the relocated offices and people. I
knew that the General Services Administration (GSA) would
have maps of the Murrah Building and would also probably
have helped temporarily relocate the offices. So with that
thinking out the box, (which I think Indian people tend to
be good at) we were able to plot out where all the people
in the affected buildings were at the time of bombing and
what injuries occurred, which people died, which ones had
eardrums blown out, etc.. I interviewed someone from every
office.
Did
you loose any of your friends and colleagues?
Everyone who
died in our office was a friend and colleague. One of the
men, an administrative officer, who had always gone out of
his way to be most helpful to me died. The veterinary
colleague who had been working on a study with me died.
Only one person from my unit who was in the office at the
time of the explosion survived. Only the rim of the office
was left.
What
a nightmare!
I had to think
about it and work on it for days on end. Then I’d go to a
funeral. Then more work and another funeral. Over and over.
It was unbelievably hard. I lived two blocks from the
church that was used to notify families. You couldn’t get
away from it. For weeks everyone had their headlights on in
mourning.
I went to a ceremony where Indian people came to pray. It
was a miserable day — cold, rainy and windy. I wanted to
leave because I was freezing, and it was impossible to stay
dry. But there were some Elders, women, talking about all
the suffering that we have been through as Indian people,
and so, therefore, we could get through this. They were old
enough to remember. Here I was just a little bit cold and
uncomfortable, so how could I leave. The ladies said that
when it rains, the spirits can go up. It was pouring rain
every day. It was an unbelievable experience.
Two years after the bomb, I was sent back to Oklahoma City
to attend a Critical Incidence Workshop for disaster
responders. It was a debriefing regarding the personal
effect of the disaster on each responder, The debriefing
can be compared in some ways to a cleansing type ceremony.
I should have gone sooner.
The bomb happened toward the end of my second year in
Oklahoma. I was so burned out when I left Oklahoma that
when my colleagues at the health department asked if I
wanted to continue working with them on the human study, I
said that I didn’t want to. When the human study was
published in JAMA
[Journal
of the American Medical Association], my name was
mentioned with a thank you. When I was in Oklahoma I also
began a study of the injuries and illnesses of the
search–and- rescue, police, and bomb-detection dogs at the
bomb site.
What an incredibly painful experience. I’m so sorry that
you had to go through all of that. What happened with the
dog study?
I continued
working on it. It took 3 years before it could be published
because the CDC and FBI wanted to be sure there was nothing
in the article that would impact the criminal trial. The
CDC wanted to have a lot of statistics in the article. I
wanted to include and highlight the recommendations for
changes from dog handlers. The CDC didn’t want to handle it
that way. I said, “That’s what’s going to help people.”
Finally CDC agreed I could publish the article if I didn’t
include acknowledgement that I was working with the CDC.
Then 9/11 happened. Because of my experience in Oklahoma,
emotionally I couldn’t go to Ground Zero until the night
before Easter. My boyfriend and I made a prayer circle
around the whole site. When we got to the far side of the
circle, there was a dog with a vest on sitting by an
Officer who is a Captain with a Search and Rescue unit. The
officer said the dog, named Bear, was the first dog on the
site after the attack, and that Bear had made the most live
recoveries.
I told the officer about the article on the dogs in
Oklahoma. He wanted a copy. Later, after reading it he
phoned to say that we had done a good job and that we had
reached the right conclusions. He felt that the same
mistakes had been made again on this disaster, and that
people needed to learn from the dog handlers’
recommendations that were in the paper.
The paper and my experiences in Oklahoma were far from what
I had initially thought that job would bring. They happened
because I happened to be in EIS. I happened to be in
Oklahoma. I happened to be the only veterinarian. That’s
how I ended up doing the dog study. It’s not directly
related to the job I do. That is an Indian thing – if you
open yourself up, then you’re where you’re supposed to be
at the right time. A medicine woman told me, “You agreed to
be there.”
Where did you go when you left Oklahoma?
I was recruited
to work with Emergency Programs staff at our APHIS
headquarters just outside of DC in Maryland. We do disease
outbreak investigations and disease control for the U.S.
animal population. The work was exciting and important, but
I got tired of working in a cubicle, so I took my present
field job. I took a cut in pay to come back to the field,
but it’s worth it.
What are your current job responsibilities?
That changes. My usual geographic area covers about
one-third of Pennsylvania. But when there is an animal
disease outbreak somewhere else, we can choose, or might be
told, to go help. I could have gone to the United Kingdom
for the foot and mouth epidemic, but I declined. I actually
just got back from working three weeks on an out-of-state
detail to control an outbreak of a bird disease called
Avian Influenza, which is affecting chickens and turkeys. I
was the Orientation and Training Officer. I conducted all
of the basic training and orientation for all the personnel
who came to the Task Force.
Earlier, I was involved in the scrapie program. Scrapie is
similar to mad cow disease, but it is mainly a sheep
disease. Sometimes goats get it. People don’t get scrapie.
I worked with farmers who wanted to keep their sheep from
getting the disease. I also look for the disease by
collecting sheep brains, tonsils, and lymph nodes from
sheep at a local slaughterhouse. We’re trying to find out
how much scrapie actually is here in the U.S. Then we will
know how much money to ask Congress for in order to
eradicate the disease.
We also work with the livestock markets and have
regulations for disease control purposes. We make sure the
people in the markets understand and are following these
regulations.
So your job includes teaching.
Yes, one of our products is information. Some of the
teaching is informal, like talking to people at a slaughter
plant. When I have had time, I’ve talked to producers’
groups, school children, and others.
I’m also trained as a foreign animal diagnostician. If a
producer or private veterinarian calls to say that there is
something unusual happening in their animals, I’m the one
who goes out.
We’re also conducting a national dairy study. I’m the
coordinator for Pennsylvania. The study is voluntary, so we
have to convince producers to let us collect blood and milk
samples and answer questions about their animal disease
control. The information will help the dairy industry see
ways to improve.
In past years, I was the Eastern Region Native American
Special Emphasis Coordinator. (I’m still involved.) That’s
a collateral duty assignment, meaning you don’t get extra
pay. I was trying to help our agency people understand that
American Indian Nations are sovereign. Because of the
sovereignty of every Indian Nation, federal agencies do not
have jurisdiction on reservations. This means we must work
cooperatively in a government-to-government relationship
with Indian nations. I will be making presentations at
some, “Preparing Tribes for Animal Disease Emergencies”
meetings that are coming up.
On 9/11, I was just outside of Atlanta Georgia at a meeting
where I was supposed to make a presentation for our
veterinary service people on Native American issues. When
it was my turn to speak we knew the two buildings in New
York had been hit, so we knew it wasn’t an accident. I
talked about the Tree of Peace. Unbelievably, a Tree of
Peace symbol was on the mugs and bookmarks that were handed
out at the meeting. The motto shown was, “The strength of
our country is rooted in our diversity.”
Our agency is supposed to be creating a new position called
Native American Liaison, which will be full time working
with Indian Nations. I intend to apply for it.
What would you like to do in that position?
The proposed
new position is to coordinate our agency programs with
First Nation tribes to provide our services in whatever way
we can.
You have to be creative. In some tribal Nations there may
not be much animal agriculture, but there are still things
we can do. For example, I understand that some Lakota
people are trying to get back to raising horses but don’t
want these horses ever used for slaughter. Our agency is
involved in export and import, so we might be able to
facilitate the export of these horses to countries that
would agree not to slaughter the horses for meat.
It would be of tremendous value to help First Nations
prepare for Animal Disease Emergencies. The liaison
position could also help USDA understand First Nations
sovereignty.
What
advice would you give to readers who want to consider
careers in veterinary medicine?
There are
endless opportunities in veterinary medicine and also a
zillion opportunities working with the government. I’ve had
such a wide range of opportunities. If you see a need,
there’s probably a way you can get the work done if you are
creative and have perseverance.
Is there any reason to particularly encourage Indian people
to go into veterinary medicine?
I’d like to see
more Indian people in my agency. A lot of the prophecies
say that now is the time to share Native wisdom. Indian
people can enhance the ability to look at things in a
different way.
Native American values are important to all. An example
would be when a Native person hunts deer for food there is
a strong connection with that animal, and the animal is to
be thanked for its life. Currently in American slaughter
houses we do not have this same sort of feeling of
thankfulness. Although much work has been done, much more
is needed to enhance respect for the domestic animals that
we eat.
I think many people feel badly that we are losing our
cultures. The best way to preserve our culture is to help
it grow within ourselves. Then it can’t help but be spread
to others.
Are Indian veterinarians needed on reservations?
Definitely, but
on many reservations money might be lacking to pay
veterinarians. But if you want to work on a reservation,
you might be able to create a job. It might include only a
little clinical medicine, but a degree in veterinary
medicine can help in many endeavors such as helping to
bring back wildlife. There are also many environmental
problems that need to be addressed. I am friends with a
veterinarian who is using her veterinary knowledge to test
reservation dogs, other animals, and the fish, on her
reservation for poisons. She is helping clean up the
environment.
But you shouldn’t feel guilty if you don’t want to work on
a reservation. You can assist your people in other ways.
You
certainly are having an exciting and rewarding career. I
think that readers will be inspired by your initiative and
creativity. Thank you for sharing your story.
Dr. Duhaime’s article about the dogs used in the rescue and
recovery work following the Okalahoma City bombing is:
Roberta A. Duhaime, Dianne Norden, et al.. Injuries and
illnesses in working dogs used during the disaster response
after the bombing in Oklahoma City.
Journal of the American Veterinary Medical
Association. 212(8):
1202-1207, 1998.
This
article was originally published in the Autumn 2002 issue
of
Winds of Change. (The cover
artist is Virginia Stroud, United Keetoowah Bank of
Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma.)
Update
August, 2007
Dr. Duhaime: "I
am now the Cattle Fever Tick Eradication Program (CFTEP)
Tick Epidemiologist with the same agency (USDA, APHIS, VS).
I now work along the Rio Grande River in South Texas with a
group of Mounted Patrol Officers (nick named Tick Riders)
who protect the United States livestock population from the
Cattle Fever Tick. (The tick can carry a disease which was
responsible for stopping the cattle drives - a great
part of our US history!!). I really love the job and the
people who I work with. This is the most enjoyable position
I have held in the agency to date!!"