Hospital and Haven: 30 years of practicing medicine in a remote Native village in the early 1900's

Geoffrey Burke will talk about his grandparents’ work in Alaska delivering healthcare to Native communities, which has been documented in the recently-published book Hospital and Haven: The Life and Work of Grafton and Clara Burke in Northern Alaska by Mary F. Ehrlander with Hild M. Peters.

When Grafton and Clara Burke arrived in Fort Yukon, they established a hospital, mission home and orphanage. The death rate had exceeded the birth rate among the Native population, but within a year, through basic healthcare, they had turned it around.. Within 5 years, the Hudson Stuck Memorial Hospital had been become the first hospital north of the Arctic Circle that was accredited by the American College of Surgeons.