Sitting in his family room, Dr. Rogelio Arosemena recalled the teen aged girl who nearly died from stab wounds inflicted during a gang fight.

Bleeding profusely from the stomach, the 14 year old arrived at the emergency room and was taken in for surgery, where she required a 10 pint transfusion. Arosemena made an incision, gently placed his thumb on her heart and repaired the damage.

She survived and today is a happy mother.

And there was the prisoner brought to him with a piece of glass in his foot. “What he was in jail for, I don’t know. But he was the nicest man. I told him you don’t owe me anything.”

Arosemena has seen many such cases and seems to recall them as if they just occurred. He is known as much for waiving fees for indigent patients as for his involvement in the community.

Last week he donated money to East Barstow Little League as the team made its way through division finals. True to his form, there was no fanfare.

Now 67, the physician who came to Barstow 23 years ago from his native Panama and who began immediately to improve Barstow Community Hospital’s emergency room has traded in his stethoscope for retirement.

A recurrence of prostate cancer, first detected 18 months ago, forced Arosemena’s decision to give up his practice and resign from the hospital staff. Currently undergoing hormone therapy, he said the cancer is not terminal.

“I feel ok, but cancer is a treacherous disease,” he said.

Arosemena left Panama for the United States in 1943 to get training, first arriving at Georgetown University Medical School, where he got his first degree, then the Mayo Clinic, where he obtained his surgical training.

He returned to Panama in 1956 with his wife, JoAnn, first working at Gorgas Hospital, an American medical center in the canal zone, then in 1960 to Hospital Seguro Socal. It was there that he learned about socialized medicine during his eight-year tenure and became disillusioned by it.

But it is in Barstow where Arosemena’s work may best be remembered. To a list of accolades, the Barstow Area Chamber of Commerce named him man of the decade in 1986.

“His dedication to the community and to the hospital is second to none,” said Dr. Gebre Gobizie, who has known Gobezie since he came to Barstow in 1975. “His retirement is a loss to this community.”

Bonnie Barnes, the hospital’s director of nursing, remembers the training he provided her an others when she first came to BCH as a student in 1976. The doctor, without any publicity, has made annual scholarships available to nursing students.
“A lot of people wouldn’t be nurses if it wasn’t for him,” she said.

Others are equally adoring of Arosemena.

“He’s probably the most dedicated man I know,” said Maureen Bodine, manager of the emergency room and cardiac care unit. “He’s probably the most compassionate man I ever met. He cares about patients, their families and employees.”

But he expected professionalism from those around him, said Bonny Konesheck, who manages the operating room.

“He expected a lot out of people but no more than himself,” she said. “He was truly the conscience of our hospital.”

Councilwoman Helen Runyon, who worked 10 years for another local doctor, said Arosemena will be remembered well for his dedication.

“Dr. Arosemena would care for a patient even if he didn’t have the ability to pay,” she said. “He practiced his profession with pure love.”

Arosemena himself acknowledges he is recognized by current and former patients just about wherever he goes in the high desert. In 23 years of local practice he accumulated 5,900 patient files. Of those, between 1,00 and 1,500 were active when he retired June 15. “I probably have touched one member of every family in this town,” he said.

Arosemena is friendly and unassuming. He discussed his hopes for the future of Barstow Community hospital, currently targeted for major renovations. And he doesn’t mind discussing his cancer.

When he arrived in Barstow the hospital had about 50 patients at all times, but that number has drastically declined because people seek more modern facilities in Apple Valley and Victorville.

“If this hospital doesn’t put in managed care, if it doesn’t put in urgent care, it will go downhill,” he said.

Community Health Systems, which leased the facility in January, has plans for major renovations. Among them are doubling the size of the emergency room to make way for urgent care patients. It is currently adding managed health care programs.

In tribute to Arosemena, the new emergency room will be named for him.
He has confidence in Community Health Systems, which took over management of the hospital following a stormy, five-year relationship with Adventist Health System/Loma Linda.

“They’re go-getters, they take hospitals and bring them back,” he said. “They knew this hospital was failing, that’s why they came in. And they are actually recruiting doctors when no one else did.”

Arosemena, who maintained his Panamanian citizenship, is upbeat despite the caner. He said people think he has a brain tumor, which is not true. He has been assured he does not have the worst type of prostate cancer and that the prognosis is good.

Arosemena, whose wife died of cancer in 1974, plans to spend his time in retirement traveling but will remain in Barstow at least for a year. Two weeks ago he visited Panama, where one of his five children resides.

At his spacious home, Arosemena has acquired a collection of figurines and Indian artifacts from his homeland that he proudly shows his visitors.