Rez doc retiring after 54 years

Independent Staff

TSAILE, Ariz. — The Tsaile Health Center will host a retirement ceremony for Dr. Avrum Organick at 10 a.m. Thursday.

Organick is retiring after a 54-year career as a physician. For the past seven years, he has worked at the Tsaile Health Center and served Navajo communities in the Tsaile, Wheatfields, and Lukachukai areas. Navajo medicine man Johnson Dennison will offer a prayer during the ceremony, and community members are invited to attend.

Originally from Brooklyn, N.Y., Organick was educated in Hebrew schools in Brooklyn and Manhattan. After graduating from the City College in New York in 1947, he graduated from Cornell University Medical College in 1951.

Organick's internship and assistant residency in Internal Medicine were at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and he had an appointment as Teaching Fellow at Harvard University School of Medicine. After a year of specialty training in tuberculosis at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, Organick came to the Navajo Reservation as director of the Tuberculosis Sanatorium at Fort Defiance, where he served from 1954-1956. While caring for patients at the sanatorium, Organick participated in research in new anti-tuberculosis medications, some of which are still in use today.

While in Fort Defiance, Organick met and married Ida Gail, Miss Navajo of 1953. The couple has four adult children. Three of the Organick's children and four of their five grandchildren live in Albuquerque. One daughter, a law professor, has recently moved to Topeka, Kan.

During his career, Organick has served as head of the Tuberculosis Unit at Denver General Hospital with appointments as Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine; served as a Captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps Reserve at Fort Sam Houston where he was in charge of the Pulmonary and Infectious Disease Unit of the Brooke Army Medical Center; worked in tuberculosis care and research at the Milwaukee County Hospital and Muirdale Tuberculosis Hospital with academic appointments first as Assistant Professor of Medicine, Marquette University School of Medicine, then as Assistant Dean for Continuing Education; served as Director of the Medical Service at Denver General Hospital with appointments as Associate, then Full Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado; and served as Associate Director of the VA Medical Center in Albuquerque with an appointment as Professor of Medicine at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.

For 15 years, Organick had his own solo private practice in Internal Medicine and Chest Diseases, affiliating with Presbyterian and St. Joseph Hospitals in Albuquerque. In 1993, at the age of 67, he closed his practice and honed his skills in urgent-care and out-patient settings in centers throughout Albuquerque that were affiliated with Presbyterian Hospital.

In 1998 Organick joined his wife who had "come home" to the Red Lake district near Navajo, N.M. Working at the Tsaile Health Center, Organick discovered treating Navajos once again refreshed his spirit. He also discovered the new epidemic on the reservation was no longer tuberculosis but was diabetes.

In addition to his medical career, Organick has pursued an avocation as a writer. In 1999 he established his own publishing company, Red Lake Press, and has published four books: "Blessings," "Red Lake Revisited," "Canyon Boy" ( a children's book illustrated by Navajo artist Irving Toddy), and "A Scandal in Yvonsk." (A German language edition of "Blessings" will be published next month.)

During the past year, drawing upon his Jewish background and setting his observations in his current Navajoland home, Organick has written a "Spiritual Perspectives" column that appears periodically in The Independent's religion section.

For more information about Thursday's retirement ceremony, Organick can be contacted at avrumorg@aol.com.