Dr. Adam Grove has two jobs: bus driver, and naturopathic physician. He’s got some part time gigs too, like therapist, social worker, and confidant.
Grove runs the Alaska Brain Bus, a traveling resource for people with traumatic brain injuries. The bus travels to road-system parts of the state outside of Anchorage, where most brain injury medical resources are located.
“So the goal is to get brain injury information out to communities, and help communities build their own resources, so they’re not dependent on us, or anyone else,” Grove said.
Alaska has the highest rate of brain injuries in the nation, and most of those incidents happen in rural parts of the state. The Kenai Peninsula, Grove said, has high rates within the state, and a disproportionate number of vehicle collision-related brain injuries.
Grove has been working as a physician for decades, and became frustrated with the lack of resources outside of Alaska’s largest city for brain injury survivors.
“Most people don’t know how to treat brain injury, because people with brain injury, we’re just weird. I’m a brain injury survivor myself and it’s like, we just have weird stuff going on. Is it a mental health issue? Is it a physical health issue? And it’s both,” he said. “Most people aren’t used to dealing with complicated situations like that. There’s very little comprehensive care for that.”
The bus itself is a 1967 Bluebird Wanderlodge, with a deeply midcentury interior. It’s got three different seating areas for consultations and an old-fashioned steering wheel that sits flat rather than upright. Grove said according to documents, it may have been owned by 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.
When the bus comes to town, the staff entertain both scheduled appointments and walk-ups. Grove spent Tuesday sitting down with Soldonta locals who are either looking for a brain injury diagnosis, or already know they have one, and are seeking resources. He’ll take patients through a list of questions to help them determine if they have a traumatic brain injury, or maybe help someone find a good attorney for a workman’s comp case.
“It’s not really medicine, per se. When we’re on the bus, there’s a medical aspect to it, but a lot of it is social work, resource navigation, it’s kind of everything, because brain injury needs all of those things,” he said.
Sometimes, he said, he’s just a shoulder to cry on.
Although Grove came alone to Soldotna this week, the bus has a larger staff, including doctors, therapists, social workers and educators. The bus is funded by grants from the Alaska Mental Health Trust, and supported by the Alaska Department of Public Health.
Grove has been working on maintenancing and setting up the bus for years. But for its maiden voyage, the brain bus visited the Soldotna Independent Living Center Tuesday. Maggie Winston, director of the center, said it's always trying to get resources to rural brain injury survivors in its role as an advocacy organization.
“It’s really important that people get access to good resources, good care, and right away, since the brain is plastic, and your best chance for healing during that time is getting good connections right away,” she said.
Winston said the majority of the staff at the center have a disability — a federal requirement — so the center offers peer support to brain injury survivors as well.
“So we have multiple staff that have traumatic or acquired brain injury. We have a full range of staff that have had lots of different disabilities,” she said. “So our role is being that peer support, being that information and referral, and being the bridge builders.”
Now, the brain bus is headed to Homer, Seward, Delta Junction and Fairbanks. Over the next year, Grove hopes to visit other Alaska communities, then to return to Soldotna to check in on the people he consulted today. But he said there probably won’t be any visits in the winter. The bus doesn’t do well in snow.
