The Portable Veblen

APPENDIX B

TBI and Indigenous Sami and a Man with a Mission

Tromsø, Troms County, Norway — Dr. Paul Vreeland, an American neurologist, began his career trying to make a difference for American troops injured in combat. He notes that it might seem incongruous to find him living and working now among the Sami people of Norway, one of the most peaceful people on the planet. Vreeland, who suffered injuries in a widely publicized accident with American pharmaceutical heiress Cloris Hutmacher last year, was ready for a change after leaving his post at Greenslopes Veterans’ Hospital in Menlo Park, California. “I still wanted to do something that mattered.”

Vreeland is now affiliated with the University of Tromsø and the Center for Sami Health Studies. “Snowmobile accidents are a common hazard in the life of the herder,” Vreeland said recently, in his ATV on the way to the scene of an accident. “For much of the year the herders lead a nomadic life and suffer many unreported accidents. What we hope to do here is create awareness of these injuries and train people on how to prevent the consequences.”

According to Vreeland, diagnosing a brain injury is not simple, and sometimes there’s no time to lose. Some fifty to sixty thousand Sami still depend on the reindeer for their livelihood, and herders are often far from medical facilities when they sustain injury. Vreeland believes that with proper training, early TBI diagnosis and treatment may become part of basic first aid among Sami herders.

When Vreeland is not out following the migratory path of the reindeer, training, and treating injuries, he is educating others at the University of Tromsø. His wife, Veblen Amundsen-Hovda, works for Translators Without Borders and participates in the Norwegian Diaspora Project out of the University of Oslo.

Was the transition difficult, from the hotbed of California’s Silicon Valley to the quiet city of Tromsø?

“Nothing could have prepared me for the natural beauty of this area, nor for the satisfaction I’ve gotten from taking part in the time-honored traditions of these people,” Vreeland says. “You think you’ve got it all planned. You never know what life has in store for you.”