STARPAHC, a Telemedicine Project: An Oral History Interview with Peter A. Ruiz

Peter Ruiz, December 2016. Courtesy of Peter Ruiz. Photograph by Christopher Antone. Digitized by Peter Ruiz.

Preface

In the 1970s the Tohono O'odham Nation participated in an early telemedicine project called STARPAHC. The STARPAHC project was a collaboration between NASA, Lockheed, and the Tohono O'odham (then called Papago). The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the U.S. space agency, wanted to test the feasibility of using telecommunications technology to diagnose and treat medical problems over great distances. If an astronaut in orbit around Earth or exploring the lunar surface develops a medical problem or has a medical emergency, NASA doctors need to be able to evaluate, diagnose, and treat the astronaut—even though their patient is in such a remote location. And they need to do that using telecommunications technology—and that is telemedicine.

The STARPAHC project was an experiment designed to test—on Earth—over distances of hundreds, not thousands, of miles how effective 1970s state-of-the-art telecommunications technology would be for doing telemedicine. The distances between Tohono O'odham villages and Sells and Tucson and Phoenix provided a good setting for assessing whether the technology could support high-quality telemedicine services.

I was one of a number of Native Americans who participated in the STARPAHC project. I was hired for my electronics technician skills and worked as a systems operator.

Several years ago, Jeremy A. Greene, MD, PhD, a professor of medicine and of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, who has studied STARPAHC, asked me if I would be willing to be interviewed about STARPAHC and related topics. I readily agreed and in January 2016, Dr. Greene interviewed me by telephone over the course of two sessions. Later, as I reflected on the topics we had covered in the oral history interview, I realized that I had more details to add and more things to say. And so, after getting the interview transcript, I took the liberty to make some revisions and add additional details and commentary. I also added a number of photographs which, I think, will help others who are not familiar with STARPAHC, or who don't know me, get a better understanding of what I talk about in the interview.

I hope that this document helps others see why Tohono O'odham Nation participation in the STARPAHC project was a good thing and why it was a proud moment both for the Nation and for our Nation's leaders who had the wisdom and foresight to approve the Nation's participation in such a project. I also hope that those who read it—especially O'odham and other Native American youth—will see that getting a good education and being willing to try new things can lead to unexpected opportunities and success.—Peter A. Ruiz, October 6, 2018

Acronyms and Abbreviations

AFB

Air Force Base

AIM

American Indian Movement

ASU

Arizona State University

BIA

Bureau of Indian Affairs

CHM

community health medic

CHR

community health representative

EKG

electrocardiogram

GIS

Geographic Information System

GPS

Global Positioning System

IHS

Indian Health Service

LMSC

Lockheed Missiles and Space Company

MHU

Mobile Health Unit

NASA

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (USA)

Rez

A North American Indian reservation

STARPAHC

Space Technology Applied to Rural Papago Advanced Health Care

TON

Tohono O'odham Nation

VERITAS

Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System

Transcription of Interview

The following work is based on an oral history interview of Peter Ruiz conducted by Jeremy A. Greene, MD, PhD, on January 8 and January 19, 2016, between Tucson (Peter) and Baltimore (Jeremy).

Jeremy Greene (JG):

Thanks again for agreeing to be recorded. I want to read out the consent script again for the record: It is January 8, 1:44 p.m., Eastern Standard Time. The purpose of this call is part of a research study; the purpose of the study is to explore the history of telemedicine and the use of communication technology to...