Medical Student Publishes Myth of Elder Suicide In Remote Alaskan Village, Rebutted By Superior.(Shetal Shah versus Dr. Michael Swenson)(Brief Article)

Judging by his "A Piece of My Mind" account written for the October 18, 2000, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Shetal Shah would not seem likely ever to forget his five-week stint on a tiny, island-tip outpost in the middle of the Bering Sea. In the Arctic village of Gambell, Alaska, where 450 Siberian Yupiks (also known as Inuits) live, the medical student put his fledgling skills to the service of the tribe, under the supervision of a 20-year veteran, Dr. Michael Swenson.

So it must have incited no small amount of surprise when Dr. Swenson flatly denied his pupil's version of events in the pages of the August 22/29, 2001, edition of the very same journal.

The original essay, written in the first person by Shah, entitled "Five Miles From Tomorrow," detailed his alleged encounter with a 97-year-old elder who came to him with an unusual complaint.

"Uselessness," said the old man. He had exceeded Inuit life expectancy by 30 years in his time as a hunter, a whaler, a carver, and a teacher to several younger generations.

"When a man feels his ability to help the tribe has expired," explained the aspiring Dr. Shah, "he chants a prayer and, dressed in his finest skins, bids farewell to his family and walks over the frozen Arctic Ocean, never to return." The story concluded with sentimental farewell between the old man, the medical student, and the seasoned doctor as the smiling old man disappears forever into the cold, morning fog.

Ten months after its publication Dr. Swenson wrote a letter to the editor which made up for its tardiness by its bluntness. "There was no elder who came to us with a complaint of `uselessness' or with the intent of `saying goodbye,'" he wrote. "There has never been a Siberian Yupik tradition that an elder `bids farewell to his family...never to return.'"

Dr. Swenson's letter accuses Shah of perpetuating a myth that has never been true. "As in all Inuit cultures," he explains, the ...