A Little Pain Never Hurt Nobody: An MD's Unorthodox Life in the Colorado Rockies

Elation turns to fear as the young doctor steps into the rundown clinic sixty years ago. He is twenty-six years old, a graduate of Northwestern University in Chicago with its hordes of specialists and well-equipped hospitals. On a whim, he decides to begin his medical career at a small remote town in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

As he opens the door to the clinic, reality strikes-he is alone. All the helpful specialists are in a hospital 125 miles away. He, with his limited skills and experience, is the only thing standing between life and death for the severely injured and critically ill.

But he has an edge. He is a pilot. A plane becomes an integral part of his practice. He makes house calls at remote ranches. He lands on makeshift runways (dirt roads and two-lane blacktops) at accident scenes, at times in the dead of night with only a highway patrolman's car headlights to guide him.

He delivers babies and performs emergency surgery in midflight with only Sam, his fellow pilot, or his plane's autopilot as his assistant. His patients become his "family"-honest to a fault, tough beyond reason, and, at times, hysterically funny without trying to be.

For the ride of your life, come fly with him back in time to an era where the Wild West was still wild, where cowboys and miners settled their disputes with fists, broken beer bottles, and six-guns.

Where life was simpler. Where doing what was right was more important than doing what was politically correct. Where just being alive was a great adventure.