Congratulations to Dr. Val Wangler New Mexico Physician of the Year!

from January 2022

Bark Beetles Dr. Carol Sutherland/Kathy Landers

Congratulations to Dr. Val Wangler, New Mexico's Physician of the Year

Of the 3,000+ physicians that practice throughout New Mexico, Gallup’s own Dr. Val Wangler of RMCHCS Hospital was chosen by the New Mexico Society of Hospital Medicine as the 2021 “Physician Of The Year.”

The award ceremony that took place on Dec. 2, begged the question of how does a small rural hospital doctor gain such an honor amidst the legion of providers in larger cities like Albuquerque, Las Cruces, and Santa Fe? Or perhaps a better question is, why would such an awarded doctor choose to dedicate her life to McKinley County and the lowerpay, longer-hours, and languishing-trials that come with doing medicine in the rather unnoticed corner of Northwest New Mexico?

The answers, in part, come from knowing who Dr. Val Wangler really is. A native of Ft. Worth, Texas, she graduated with a degree in a Bio Engineering, complimented with an ironic minor in Philosophy. She decided to change course and pursue medicine when she finally concluded that she “liked humans a whole lot better than computers.”

She dived into that humanity by traveling to India and volunteering for the Missionaries Of Charity where she provided first-aid care and taught English to homeless children. One reason she chose to serve in India was to experiment with “actually living on $1 a day.”

Dr. Wangler then attended medical school at Baylor College of Medicine and did her residency in Seattle. She proceeded to become chief resident and was soon teaching in the residency program itself.

Despite being in a large bustling city like Seattle with great career ladder advancements, high pay, and endless culinary options, Dr. Wangler chose to continue family medicine by moving to the pueblo of Zuni in 2010. When asked why she chose rural small-village life over big tech-city existence she simply said “ I wanted to be and serve in a place that I felt I could actually make a difference, and not just be a cog in a huge wheel. In Zuni the breadth of work was vast; I got to do everything…emergency, out-patient, delivering babies, hospital management, and after all that, on some mornings I got to hear the elk bugling from my house. Being in the pueblo I was really a part of the community; I saw my patients in the grocery store or at the gas station and doing medicine didn’t stop at the hospital doors. At times that was tricky. though, like the occasions I felt bad for buying a candy bar if I ran into, say, one of my diabetic patients.”

In her 8-year tenure, Dr. Wangler became Chief of Staff in the Zuni hospital and is credited with starting the team-based Health Tech program. She is well known and remembered in the Pueblo of Zuni for advocacy on behalf of Zuni youth, helping grow the Zuni Youth Enrichment Project. This eventually led to her successful grant procurement and project leadership for the creation of a beautiful new Youth center-complete with sports fields, local art, story-telling circles, and hiking trails.

In 2018 it was time for a change and a new challenge when she interviewed to run the family medicine residency program at RMCHCS, which she then designed, implemented and currently directs. At this time Dr. Wangler moved to Gallup, bought a house, settled into a new job, and a new family with her son “Kai” coming into the world that same year. Soon she was also Chief Medical Officer for RMCHCS.

Then Covid 19 came.

The challenges of a small rural hospital hit with a disproportionately large number of Covid cases was (and is) an unprecedented challenge for Dr. Wangler and all the staff at RMCHCS. In the highest case load times, in order to be both safe and available, she moved out of her home with her family, and into a spare room in the hospital for 2 months. She was the chief decision maker, question answerer, and also the one to whom staff came when they were near panic. One staff member remembers, “she must have said, ‘Ok, big deep breaths. I’ve got you about a thousand times those first months.”

Additionally, Dr. Wangler coordinated with GIMC, city officials, and other local institutions to streamline and unify the county’s Covid response. She also led the team in rolling out Covid testing protocol and practices, and later, a vaccination clinic. In fact, it was into her hands that the very first delivery of vaccine was placed.

When asked to comment on her award, Dr. Wangler, deferred to instead compliment her co-workers at RMCHCS and says that she is “incredibly fortunate to work with a group of people, from cafe cooks to surgeons, who give it their all every day.”

Finally, when asked what she might do to enjoy and savor the distinguished honor of her award she laughs and says “Well… .I love to just do a family hike along with my 3 dogs (two of them Zuni rez dogs) on our great trails, or maybe take my son to the Gallup skate park, but really just spend time with my family.”

Congratulations to Dr. Val Wangler on being New Mexico’s Physician of the Year!