Historia Oral // Oral History

For my Oral History project, I interviewed Dr. Peter Mason, a family medicine doctor in Lebanon, New Hampshire. He has been practicing for over 20 years and attended medical school at Boston University School of Medicine.

Dr. Peter Mason (left) pictured with colleague.

Dr. Peter Mason has a long history of working with community health, which he describes in the detail in the interview below. Some highlights include working in the wards of mental hospitals, activism to prevent lead poisoning, working with the Black Panther party, working with various groups of indigenous people, working to shut down a nuclear power plant, working as a physician with planned parent hood, working to set up a model family practice unit to train family practice physicians, working at Harvard Medical School, working with a coalition to assist with addiction related health problems, and more. Particularly relevant to our trip, Dr. Peter Mason has also spent a substantial amount of time practicing community health abroad, particularly in Honduras. He has been traveling to Honduras every year since ’89 when he assisted with relief following hurricane Mitch. In addition, he has been on a previous trip to Nicaragua with the LACS 20 group.

Damage associated with hurricane Mitch.

Interview Part 1:

Interview Part 2:

The following are some selected quote from the interview above:

“My mantra throughout my career has been that physicians need to be agents of social change. The status quo is terrible, so many people are left behind and there is so much disparity between the top and the bottom of society and between rich countries and poor countries. That’s what I teach medical students, I hope, by example.”

“You have to work with other people in the community, people who know more than you do. You have to work with partnerships to try to make a change.”

“If you’ve come to serve side by side then you are welcome.”

“See it as a learning experience where you can learn from them just as they can learn from you.”

“Keep an open mind and understand that different cultures have different ways of looking at things things. We do not have a lock on the truth or the right way of doing things.”

In addition, here is a link to the article Dr. Peter Mason mentions regarding the Good Neighbor Health Clinic:

https://www.dartmouth-hitchcock.org/stories/article/45798

I would like to thank Dr. Peter Mason for his time, his sincerity, and his lifelong commitment to community health both within the United States and internationally.