New Mexico
Dermatology wait times soar as New Mexico faces deepening doctor shortage
NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – A statewide doctor shortage is increasing wait times for New Mexico patients. This year, dermatology wait times reached record highs, and medical groups warn delays will continue to grow without legislative action.
“Many of the doctors who are here are tired; they’re overworked. They need some help. We need to recruit more doctors into this state, and if we don’t take action right now, I think you know it’s not too outlandish to think about it: a collapse of the medical system.”
That’s according to retina surgeon Dr. Nathaniel Roybal, who spends his spare time as a physician advocate, working with communities and lawmakers to find ways to incentivize doctors to stay in — and come to — New Mexico. He said doctors around the state believe it is risky to practice here because it is easy to be sued for medical malpractice, which he calls the major driver behind the doctor shortage.
Roybal is a former president of the Greater Albuquerque Medical Association and a councilor for the New Mexico Medical Society. He warned that the state’s health care system is at a crisis point — and that New Mexican patients and their loved ones are the ones who suffer most. “In this state, in this healthcare system, the most vulnerable are always the poor. Always the sick. It just is,” said Roybal. “And if you can’t take care of 100% of New Mexicans, I worry that the ones that will be taken care of are the ones that have insurance that can afford to be taken care of.”
A prime example of the shortage is the dermatology department at UNM Hospital, which sent a memo to providers about six months ago.
The memo reads, “due to a critical shortage of dermatologists at UNMH,” wait lists for new patient appointments have reached an unprecedented one to one-and-a-half years. The UNM dermatology department said it is still only accepting referrals for urgent cases. “Obviously, that’s concerning if you are the New Mexican who has a dermatologic problem and needs to see a physician,” Roybal said.
In a statement to KRQE News 13, UNMH said that since the memo was sent, additional doctors have been hired, with two more expected to join next year. The hospital said it has expanded e-consults, is holding free walk-in skin cancer screenings in rural areas, and has reduced the number of patients waiting for an appointment by nearly 50%.
UNMH is not the only health care group working to close the gap. Dr. Denise A. Gonzales, medical director for Presbyterian Medical Group, said Presbyterian Hospital has some promising developments planned for the new year. She said the shortage of dermatologic care providers has been an issue for a long time, particularly in New Mexico, where UV exposure risk is high.
Presbyterian has never had a full-scale dermatology department like UNM’s and has often referred patients to UNM and community dermatologists for Mohs surgeries. Gonzales said that over the past few years, Presbyterian has brought teledermatology to Plains Regional Medical Center in Clovis, New Mexico.
She said thanks to that program, dermatologists can evaluate Albuquerque patients while they are home, and if a biopsy is needed, they can have it done in Presbyterian facilities. “That’s just a very small amount of increase in services that we’ve been able to do in the last two years, recognizing that there is a shortage of dermatology services throughout the state.”
The Presbyterian Healthcare Foundation recently announced it is launching its first full-service dermatology clinic, funded by a $2.5 million gift from Ellen and Jim King to the newly formed “King Fund for Dermatology.”
“In the fall of 2026 is when we expect to have our clinic fully open and staffed with physicians and PA’s who can do the full breadth of treatments and diagnoses so they can treat things like acne and skin cancers, they can treat it with light therapy and lasers, and can cut things out if they need to be cut out,” Gonzales said.
She said the long-term goal is to expand those services across Presbyterian’s regional centers by connecting patients to experts in Albuquerque through telemedicine. “So, it’s as easy as putting a camera on it and talking to that expert in Albuquerque to then decide on what the next steps should be,” Gonzales said.
Still, medical professionals said meaningful change must happen at the legislative level. Many welcomed Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s decision to include medical malpractice reform in the call for the upcoming 30-day legislative session.
UNM’s statement and Dr. Roybal said the issue extends far beyond dermatology. “That’s the problem, not just playing out in dermatology, it’s playing out in ophthalmology and internal medicine, and family practice, and you name it,” Roybal said.
UNMH said it could not provide a current estimate for new patient wait times, citing the difficulty of projecting timelines while working through existing patient lists.
While the New Mexico Medical Society and the Greater Albuquerque Medical Association said medical malpractice reform should be the top priority, some lawmakers are pushing to broaden the discussion. Proposals include increasing residency slots and changing the gross receipts tax rule that requires physicians to pay taxes on payments received for medical services.
There is also disagreement over data. Think New Mexico, a local think tank, reports that New Mexico has one of the nation’s highest rates of medical malpractice lawsuits. And that the state lost more physicians between 2019-2024 than any other state in the country. However, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Joseph Cervantes (D-Las Cruces) said during a recent radio interview that the data is false.
Dr. Roybal, however, stands by Think New Mexico’s data and adding he’s always willing to take anyone to the CMS.gov website (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) to walk people through it. He also suggested lawmakers who are also trial lawyers, such as Sen. Cervantes, should recuse themselves from both the discussion and votes on the issue due to a conflict of interest.
Roybal said he is confident New Mexico communities will unite to make their voices heard, calling the issue a generational fight that will shape the state’s future. He believes a balance can be found that protects patients while incentivizing doctors. “Doctors want their patients to be whole. We don’t want it to be impossible to ever sue, or if there was somebody who did something nefarious that was just terrible and hurt somebody, we want that person to be taken care of, their future medical to be covered, we want them to make sure they’re compensated for something that happened that was terrible,” Roybal said. “We also have to recognize, on the other hand, the number of people that happens to is between .1 and .01 percent of the population. And so when you have a law that’s overly protective in that situation and really stretches it allows for hundreds of millions of lawsuits in a single suit, it no longer serves the greater good.”
Dr. Gonzales said addressing the shortage will require multiple solutions. “Things like tort reform are important and the cost of medical malpractice, but it’s also important to make sure that Medicare and Medicaid have appropriate funding levels that we make it easy for people to obtain licenses in this state,” Gonzales said.
She added that New Mexico does not participate in the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact. “That’s a very difficult nut to crack, because it’s not as simple as just join the compact. There are downsides and risks to that as well,” she said.
Gonzales closed with a personal note, saying she wants better access to care for her mother in rural New Mexico. She emphasized the need for sustained effort beyond legislative sessions. “It has to be continuous. It has to be multifaceted, and it’s got to be something where we’re moving the ball along all the time. And we can’t give up on it, because it impacts so many things about New Mexico,” Gonzales said.
NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – Some call the multi-million-dollar El Camino Real Heritage Center an architectural masterpiece. Others, however, call it one of New Mexico’s most expensive blunders. In 2021, former Speaker of the House Don Tripp weighed in on the project, “As far as benefit, it really didn’t have any benefit to anybody.”
Taxpayers paid more than $4,000,000 to build it, a few million dollars more to operate it and, now, a half million to tear it down.
The El Camino Real Heritage Center is a history museum dedicated to the historic ‘Royal Road of the Interior’. Established by Spanish conquistadores in 1598, the historic byway extended from Mexico City to north of Santa Fe. Armed with $4,000,000 from the state legislature and the Bureau of Land Management, consultants were hired to find the best place to build the new museum. After studying various locations, they chose a remote spot on the prairie 37 miles south of Socorro.
The experts said, ‘build halfway between Socorro and Truth or Consequences,’ and the museum will draw 100,000 visitors a year, bring in $10,000,000 to the region, and create 174 new jobs. Back in 2004, no one raised a red flag about putting a tourist attraction in an out-of-the-way location. It was only after construction was complete that officials learned the so-called experts were dead wrong. The project was doomed to fail before it even opened its doors. “Who the heck thought it was a good idea to build it where they built it?” State Rep. Gail Armstrong told KRQE News 13 last year.
The state’s newest museum opened in 2005. An estimated crowd of 2000 turned out for the dedication ceremony. Socorro Mayor Ravi Bhasker was there. “We had Bill Richardson out there cutting the ribbon, and then we had the Vice President of Spain come down here with his beautiful wife, and we had dignitaries everywhere. It was exciting,” Mayor Bhasker said.
But the excitement was short-lived. Where the historic El Camino Real trail was in use for three centuries, the museum with its namesake lasted just eleven years. The remote location meant few visitors, meager revenue, inadequate staffing, expensive utilities, and maintenance.
In 2016, New Mexico’s Cultural Affairs Department pulled the plug on the El Camino Real Heritage Center, padlocked the doors, and permanently closed the museum. The parking lot is deserted, tourists are gone, artifacts are packed away, display cases vacant, exhibits dismantled, interpretive panels removed, and the gift shop is bare. All there is to show for millions of tax dollars is an abandoned building on the prairie.
“Eleven years is disgraceful. There was a real failure in this particular project,” the late State Senator John Arthur Smith said in a 2021 interview. We asked the retired Senate Finance Committee Chair, when the history of this project is written, what will it say? “They’re going to shake their head and (use this as) another example of government waste,” the retired Senator Smith said in 2021.
So what do you do with a $4,000,000 deserted building in the middle of nowhere? Time and vandals have taken a toll. The museum was closed and boarded up in 2016, and then state officials abandoned the site. Because little effort was made to secure the empty building, it is no longer habitable. Copper wiring has been stolen. There is significant structural damage, mold, a rodent infestation, and no electricity or lights. Most of the HVAC, electrical, plumbing, water, and septic systems are either obsolete or inoperable.
Faced with a whopping $3.5 million repair bill, the Museum of New Mexico’s Board of Regents made the difficult decision last year to demolish the building. Board of Regent’s President, Dr. George Goldstein, calls the building, “A loss, a huge loss.”
“What a complete waste of taxpayer dollars,” says State Rep. Gail Armstrong who’s District 49 includes the museum site. And what did taxpayers get for their $4,000,000 investment? “Nothing. It just cost them a ton of money. Nothing,” Representative Armstrong said.
This week, a state-hired demolition crew began the task of tearing down the museum complex. Tons of concrete, steel, and glass will be hauled away. The parking lot and nearby caretaker’s house will also be ripped out. The prairie will be graded, reseeded with native plants, and returned to the Bureau of Land Management in restored, pristine condition. The demolition project is expected to take four months.
The El Camino Real museum was planned and built during the Governor Bill Richardson administration. All of the State Legislators involved in the funding of the museum project have since left government service.
Soon, the El Camino Real International Heritage Center will be just a bitter memory. All clues to the existence of a pricey government blunder will have been erased. Pay a visit to the remote spot south of Socorro later this fall, and all you will find will be desert creosote, prairie dogs, and a few rattlesnakes.
CLOVIS, New Mexico (KVII) — A baby giraffe was born at the Hillcrest Park Zoo in Clovis.
The city announced a male calf was born around 1 a.m. Thursday to Jerrica, a Rothschild giraffe who has lived at the zoo since she was born there in January 2012.
Zoo officials said Jerrica, a first-time mother, and her calf are doing well.
Baby giraffe born at the Hillcrest Park Zoo in Clovis, New Mexico on July 9, 2026 (Credit: Hillcrest Park Zoo )
The calf will make his public debut from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment you won’t want to miss! Bring your family, your camera, and your excitement as we welcome the zoo’s newest (and tallest!) superstar!” said the zoo.
Because the calf is male, he will eventually be moved from Hillcrest Park Zoo to another zoo or facility, according to the city.
The zoo plans to ask the public to help name the calf in the coming weeks.
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