Family physician celebrates 25 years in private practice

Adelfio Fronterotta has been practicing medicine at his family clinic in Gallup for 25 years. [Photo by Brian Leddy/Independent]

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff writer

GALLUP — Dr. Adelfio P. Fronterotta is one of those rare individuals who has actually spent his adult life doing what he dreamed of as a child.

And upon the 25th anniversary of the opening his medical practice in Gallup — which he celebrated on Aug. 30 — Fronterotta talked about his medical career, a career that was born out of the illnesses he suffered as a child.

The son of immigrants who came to the United States from Italy’s Abruzzo Province, Fronterotta was born and raised in Gallup. Fronterotta said he was sick for much of his early childhood, and he remembers missing numerous holidays because of frequent hospitalizations for serious bouts with asthma and bronchitis.

When he was about 7 or 8, he recalled, his father took him to a different doctor, who had a different solution for Fronterotta’s health problems. That physician, Dr. John Martin, removed Fronterotta’s tonsils, and with that surgery, Fronterotta’s health dramatically improved.

“He took out my tonsils, and I was on my way,” Fronterotta said. He described Martin as “an old-time practitioner.”

“At that point,” he said, “I really just wanted to become a doctor. I never really wanted to become anything else.” Fronterotta said his family members, none of whom had ever attended college, were supportive and encouraging of his goal.

Family Practice
After graduating from Gallup High School in 1970, Fronterotta earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry from the University of New Mexico, graduated from UNM Medical School in 1979, and served a three-year residency at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix. During that time he also married Susie, a nuclear medicine technician from Denver, who has been his wife for 28 years.

While in medical school, Fronterotta made the decision to specialize in family medicine. He wanted to take care of families, he explained, from delivering babies, to caring for children and adults, to helping older family members as they faced the aging process and moved through their final years.

“That was just a real exciting thing,” Fronterotta said, “to touch peoples’ lives.”

He also decided to return to Gallup and set up his own private medical practice. Fronterotta explained that when he married his wife, he promised to “go 50/50” with her on anything, except his decision to practice medicine in Gallup. That wasn’t debatable, he said.

“The town was always very supportive of me,” Fronterotta said, who explained that Gallup had a shortage of physicians, and he had a desire to give back to his hometown.

A small town like Gallup also offered Fronterotta medical opportunities he would not have had in a large city. “In a small town like this, you kind of have to do everything,” he said. “That’s part of the fun — gaining knowledge.”

The decision to have a private practice was based on Fronterotta’s desire to work for himself and be his own boss. Fronterotta and his wife, who now works alongside him as a medical assistant, purchased land on Nizhoni Boulevard near the city’s two hospitals and built their medical office.

“I went into debt before I even saw a patient,” Fronterotta said. “Some people thought I was crazy. I said, ‘No, it’s going to work out.’ And it has worked out.”

Once Fronterotta opened his office in 1982, Martin again figured importantly in Fronterotta’s life, this time as an older, experienced doctor helping guide a younger physician.

“He was a mentor,” Fronterotta recalled, “and taught me a lot of things about life.”

The challenges of having such a medical practice — being on call constantly and having limited private time with his family — have been balanced by his enjoyment of working with his patients, Fronterotta said, some of whom have been known to bring him homemade tamales or desserts at his office.

“What kind of value do you put on that?” he asked. “It indeed truly is a family that we have here.”

Fronterotta also expressed appreciation for Angela Mendoza, the woman he hired as his secretary 19 years ago. “People just really love her,” he said.

Years of Change
Much has changed for Fronterotta over the past 25 years. Health care in Gallup is much better, he said, because medical technology has improved and the number of physicians practicing here has increased. On a personal level, he said, the highlight was the birth of his daughter, Lucia, 23 years ago. He also remembers the last baby he delivered in his practice. It was several years ago when the nearly 12 pound baby created very difficult labor for the mother and pushed Fronterotta to decide to stop delivering babies because of soaring malpractice insurance rates in the obstetrics field.

Fronterotta also remembers seeing his first patient, as if it were yesterday. The man was a veteran and a survivor of World War II’s Bataan Death March. That patient died recently, said Fronterotta, after living into his late 80s.

“It always takes a little bit from you,” said Fronterotta of seeing someone pass away after being a patient for many years.

Dealing with the death of a young person — through a disease like cancer — is another matter, he said. “You know, young people are not supposed to die,” he said. In those cases, he added, doctors can just try to be there to support the patient and the family.

“I have to believe there’s a reason,” he said. “I don’t always understand the reason, they don’t always make sense, but that’s part of acceptance.”

Although Fronterotta said he still loves seeing patients in his office, he is trying to cut back on the hours he is on call during the night. “It’s getting harder and harder to get up as I get older,” he admitted.

But he also admitted he cannot see himself ever fully retiring from medicine. Because he’s been self-employed, Fronterotta said he’s never been able to volunteer time for a medical mission. As he reduces his workload in future years, Fronterotta said he hopes to be able to volunteer his medical services for charitable projects like Doctors without Borders.