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Today's Featured Biography
Christian R (Chris) AMOROSO, M.D.
Some of my Wisdom-Gathering Experiences Christian R. Amoroso MD
As a 13-year-old hospital janitor working after school, I swept and mopped the operating room floors. The OR wasn’t sanitary in those days; the floors were actually full of blood and catgut sutures. This was my first experience as a healthcare provider. My first observations of “Health Caring” came from watching my immigrant father serving customers in our neighborhood grocery store in the Italian ghetto where we lived. He was a “healer,” listening daily with a warm open heart to his customers' life concerns and responding with compassion and humor to help them with their struggles. His ministrations came free with the purchase of a ten-cent loaf of bread.
Through my father's and my mother’s hard work in the store and their constant support, I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. Med School was an unending experience of mental and physical fatigue laced with verbal abuse. Shockingly, in my senior year I became a cancer survivor, having had half of a lung removed. In 1958, lung surgery was excruciating. I experienced the pain and fear that accompanied serious illnesses, learning firsthand the need for understanding and empathy. The Dean of my med school was my saving grace; he visited me often, modeling loving compassion, and assured me I would graduate even if he had to read for me. I then Interned at the 2000-bed Philadelphia General Hospital, and had an Internal Medicine Residency at the Philadelphia VA Hospital, followed by a fellowship in Rheumatology at the University of Colorado in Denver. I practiced Internal Medicine for 13 years in a small town, Longmont Colorado, where Joanne, my RN wife and soulmate of 50 years, and I raised our five children. I was Chief of Staff during a ground breaking uniting of the community Medical and Osteopathic Hospitals.
In the 1970’s, I became very passionate about preventive medicine and embarked on a fitness wellness program of my own. I began long distance running, which I continue to this day, and gradually gained better physical and emotional health. I wanted to be a part of the budding fitness/wellness movement and accepted a position as Medical Director of Health, Safety and Environment for the Kodak Company in Colorado, where I developed a pioneer program for Work Fitness and Health of the Organization. The program included ergonomic improvement, on-site-specific job fitness exercises, work hardening, rapid recovery and workshops for employees and families to accommodate the challenges of shift work. In the 1980’s, we received The Governors’ Richard Lamms’ Award for the best Wellness Fitness program in the State of Colorado.
In an effort to improve the health of the organization, I assumed many other leadership roles, including Assistant Manager of a film manufacturing division of 800 employees with a $50,000,000 budget, Human Resource Director, Director of Quality Management and Director of Manufacturing Excellence. I also led a team of organizational development specialists to provide Quality/Change management strategies internally, and with client health care organizations in the US and Canada including Baldrige Assessments for excellence in health care systems. We added an 8th category to assess the organization's Health-Healing values and outcomes. During this time my wife and I also helped found Health Treks, a volunteer organization to Nepal, working with and in the Nepali medical cultural structure to promote an ongoing healthier community.
In 1992, I founded the Optimal Health Leadership Consulting Company. I worked with numerous healthcare organizations to liberate their “Healing Spirit,” to help improve their performance, and to help create a healing, compassionate, caring environment for caregivers as well as patients. I also consulted for Navitas, an integrative complimentary cancer rehabilitation organization in Denver. As a result of involvement with palliative, end-of-live care for numerous family members in the US and New Zealand, my wife and I were able to assess and contribute to the development of compassionate integrative “Health-Caring” systems.
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CFrom: Chris Amoroso
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2013 10:35 PM
Subject: Why I favor immigration reform. Chris Amoroso please pass on to classmates
Dear Friends and classmates. I have been living near the Arizona Mexican Border for the past 12 years and am one of many "Samaritans" who try to keep migrants from dying crossing the desert. We place water in the desert, search for migrants and help them get medical attention, give them food, clothing and water and connect them with the border patrol. We also go into Mexico and help feed and clothe the many thousands of deported immigrants and help them get back to their homes. I have also taken part for three years in a Migrant Trail Walk calling attention to the needless deaths, hoping to put a stop to them
Please watch this powerful, very difficult to watch, PBS documentary April 29th 2013.
http://video.pbs.org/program/independent-lens/ or read Peg Bowden's blog www.arroya.org
This is why I have done the Migrant trail walk the past three years in hopes of stopping the needless deaths of poor human beings striving to feed their families, willing to do much needed jobs in the United States that go unfilled without them. I have also included my experience of walking the Migrant trail.
My second migrant trail walk (7-day 75-mile walk from Sassabe Mexico to Tucson, Arizona) was more challenging and more rewarding than my walk last year. This year, I was part of the organizing committee and felt the weight of the responsibility of achieving the success and the safety of the group of 70-plus participants, from eight different countries ranging in age from 18 to 77. The group was a multicultural, spiritually diverse group walking intentionally on a journey of peace to remember people, friends, and family who have died, others who have crossed, and people who continue to come, bearing witness to the tragedy of death. The hope is that the group of walkers and their support team will be able to draw attention to this inhumanity and motivate the necessary changes in our border policies to alleviate these needless deaths. Since 1990, six thousand men, women and children have lost their lives crossing the US/Mexican border.
I was not as fit as last year and found the first two days physically taxing. We entered Sassabe Mexico, passing through the 12-foot rust-colored metal fence, visible as far as we could see to the east and ending to our west...leaving the border open. There were armed border patrol at the crossing making us aware that we were in a militarization zone. A sign on the Mexican side read “no firearms allowed." I did not see one on our side. We spend 18 billion dollars a year on border security including the cost of building and maintaining the fence, while hundreds of thousands of migrants continue to cross each year.
We went to a Catholic church for a lunch prepared by the Catholic sisters, then took part in a procession carrying three mock caskets of a mother, father, and child one mile back to the border. There we took part in a Native American ceremony preparing us for a safe journey and venerating the land on both sides of the wall, as one.
On our way to the wall, on the Mexican side, we saw a group of 20-plus young-looking males in a group, apparently preparing to make a crossing that evening. We remembered them as we walked and were concerned for their well-being. We were well supported with food, brought to us by various support groups at lunch and dinner, and our support team had water waiting for us every two miles with snacks. The Border Patrol was aware of our presence at all times and did not disturb us. Migrants travel in the dark at night and avoid being seen, scrambling through the foreboding, treacherous desert landscape.
We began walking at 6 a.m. to avoid the extreme heat, and tried to finish near noon. The temperature did reach 100-plus on several days. On the longest day, 16 miles, we awakened at 3 a.m. and broke camp in the dark. Breaking camp in the dark was quite a challenge for me. The reward was seeing the sun come up, lighting up Boboquivari, the sacred mountain peak of the Tohono O’odam Nation.
By the third day, most of the group had significant blisters on their feet, and three of our group developed early signs of heat exhaustion. They responded well to cooling and rest. One of our group developed painful gastroenteritis and needed to be taken to an urgent care facility in Tucson. Another participant sprained her ankle on the last day and needed care. I was kept quite busy being “Dr. Chris.” I was respected and honored. It pleased me to be using my skills and wisdom on the walk; it did, however, add to my fatigue. I realized how much I miss contributing and being valued and what a rich, rewarding feeling that was. I was also pleased to be at ease with the responsibility's, despite not having been in this role for several years, I felt right at home.
I was overwhelmed by the amount of debris in the desert: water bottles, personal belongings, and food containers for miles near the highway. This must have been places where migrants that weren’t apprehended were picked up in vehiclesmto be transported to other places in the country.
The most moving event for me, which brought tears to my eyes, occurred while walking on a path along side of Hwy 86 from Three Points to Tucson. I was in a dream-like zone, walking along almost not aware of where I was. In my peripheral vision, I saw a car stop and a dark-skinned man jump out of his car and rush towards us. He was carrying two or three cans of Coke and what turned out to be his water bottle. He handed it to one of our group who moved out to meet him. I’m ashamed to say my first thought was, “Oh, you don’t need to do that we have plenty of food and drinks. You keep those for yourself.” Fortunately, the member of our team that greeted him was much wiser than I was and graciously accepted his gift. He was doing the most he could to support us and was not the least bit hesitant. What more can we ask of ourselves or anyone? I was humbled by his actions and am still moved to be relating it. He represented the hundreds of people who were supporting us physically and spiritually, I was experiencing the gift of empathy and compassion of one human being reaching out with whatever he had to give and giving it lovingly. For me that event was worth the entire journey.
Our team bonded within 48 hours and were fun to be around. Our support group intentionally strived to be cordial, caring and thoughtful with our words and actions, and were well appreciated for our efforts. I felt like I was part of a compassionate, caring team. The group shared our life stories and built relationships that I’m sure will last a long time. Before parting, we had a wonder-filled evening at a Baptist Church where we entertained each other with songs, skits and poetry. I shared the Haiku’s I wrote last year on the trail
My feelings are best expressed in my Haiku poems.
Day 1
My mind is twirling
The fence is very foreboding
Hope seems far away
Day 2
Bodies in a line
Multiple legs with one heart
Our spirits unite
Day3
The path I follow
Speaks of sorrow, pain, hope, and peace
Hear and remember
Day 4
We move in darkness
Our spirits lighten our way
Waiting for the sun
Day 5
Silently we walk
Listening to their voices of hope
Hearing their song lines
Day 6
Silence fills the air
Our souls in touch with the earth
She welcomes our feet
Day 7
United we walk
Praying migrants will survive
We are all migrants
Chris Amoroso
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