The Guadalajara Reporter

Meet Dr. Sam, Cruz Roja’s medical chief

For the first time since its founding in the 1950’s, Cruz Roja Delegacion Chapala has a native English speaker on staff as the clinic’s medical director. Dr. Sam Thelin – a U.S. citizen fluent in fn Spanish – took up the post just over one year ago. He recently agreed to sit down to chat with the Reporter’s Dale Hoyt Palfrey about his career and life story.

Actually, there wasn’t a whole lot of sitting down during the encounter. It was a typical Saturday evening at the Red Cross, so it turned into an opportunity for the affable physician to show off keen skills for multi-tasking as he bounced between tending to patients and other duties, still keeping the conversation rolling without ever losing his train of thought.

When we arrived he was keeping a close eye on a teenager recovering from a severe allergic reaction to a bee sting and another who had just been bandaged up after a car crash. Others eventually trickling into the sick bay included a fellow hurt by falling off a horse, and ya oung couple whose screaming baby was diagnosed with acute tonsillitis. Then ambulance medics brought in a family of three picked up after their motorcycle collided with a car. Luckily none seemed to be seriously injured, but as they were rolled in to the x-ray unit that was our signal to call it quits. By that time we had covered a lot of ground in the Q & A.

Where and when were you born?

I was born in Jamestown, in western New York. My birthday is November 15. I’d rather not say what year.

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