GALLUP, N.M. — About a year ago, Valory Wangler, a family medicine doctor, invited a handful of former co-workers to her backyard.
During the early months of the covid-19 outbreak, Wangler and her colleagues had worked at a hospital in this former railroad hub of about 21,000 residents just a few miles from the Navajo Nation. The pandemic had been hard on Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital. Emergency federal funding was drying up and…