I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin into a family of doctors, so it was natural for me to follow in their footsteps.
Making house calls (yes there was such a thing back then) and hospital rounds with my father was exciting to me. After graduating from The Medical College of Wisconsin in 1971, I came to California to do an internship at Valley Medical Center in San Jose with the intention of returning to practice medicine in Milwaukee as was family tradition, but California grabbed a hold of me and never let go.
I stayed at “The Valley” as we called it, and worked in the outpatient clinic and became chief jail physician for the Santa Clara County Jail as well as the Elmwood Correctional Facility.
During this time I thoroughly enjoyed moonlighting in the emergency room at The Valley. At the end of 1974 I was approached by a group of physicians who were taking over the emergency room contracts at the Valley Medical Center and at San Jose Hospital, to join with them for full-time emergency medical work.
I worked in emergency medicine for the next five years. It was very challenging and exciting and provided me great experience in practicing emergency care as well as routine medical care.
It was also a time when I accepted Christ as my personal savior. With this new change came a desire to do medical mission work, and through the Christian Medical Society, I was assigned to work in the Central American country of Honduras. I spent two years there on the Miskito Coast on the Caribbean side of the country, the first year with Dr. Sam Marx at his well established clinic, then the second year moving to a small coastal town called Cocobila. There I helped to establish a clinic and train several women to function as nurses to care for the local Miskito Indian population.
I joined the Santa Cruz Medical Clinic in 1987 when it opened its first satellite office in Scotts Valley. I spent 28 wonderful years practicing urgent care medicine in Scotts Valley. I came to know many wonderful people during that time, having had around 100,000 patient visits.
I retired this past January and I am enjoying my retirement. I can now spend more time with my wife Beth, who is very busy as music educator for the Scotts Valley middle and high schools. She also keeps me busy by involving me in her community activism.
My daughter Emma is a senior at Scotts Valley High and is currently applying to a variety of California state universities for next year.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with this community and it’s been a true pleasure for me to give back to it through my articles in the Press Banner. I began writing them just over eight years ago and have done some 175 articles published to date.
My mission in writing the articles was to share my years of experience in a format that was easily understandable and informative and to help promote better health within our community.
I appreciate the positive feedback I’ve had from so many of you and I plan to continue this endeavor for as long as I am able to do so.
