Dr. George T. Mitchell of Marshall, Illinois, shares with humor and compassion stories and reflections about his medical practice of fifty years.

Having grown up in Marshall, Dr. Mitchell writes of his early experiences in midwestern America: basketball rivalries, school-boy pranks, and the traditions passed down through a family of doctors. Dr. Mitchell tells of his brief detour to obtain a degree in mechanical engineering, his decision to pursue a career in medicine, and his medical school experiences at the George Washington School of Medicine before the days of antibiotics and sophisticated medical technology. He vividly describes his subsequent service in World War II as a young surgeon at a military hospital helping injured soldiers resume normal lives while enduring the frustrations and occasional horrors of military life.

After the war, Dr. Mitchell joined his father’s practice in Marshall, where, he observes, he was among sixteen physicians in a rural county with a population of less than twenty thousand people. Within twenty-five years, the number of doctors had dropped to only four. In this memoir Dr. Mitchell conveys his unwillingness to just sit by and watch the health needs of his community increase while medical and other services decline. He, instead, became a community activist, representing rural concerns to the state medical society, organizing the first emergency medical technician teams in the county, masterminding the planning of a regional medical center, campaigning successfully for improved highway safety, and spurring the extension of reliable telephone service throughout his area.

As Dr. Mitchell recounts the house calls, farm accidents, emergency surgeries, and family counseling that comprised the life of this country doctor, he offers the keen insights of a clinician trained to look beyond what others only see.

"As a ‘country doctor,’ Dr. Mitchell has traveled through ice, snow, and other storms, sometimes requiring the use of farm tractors and rowboats. He has performed home deliveries, sometimes by lamplight. At the time he ceased obstetrical deliveries, he had assisted more than fifteen hundred citizens into the world. Through it all, he collected many of the stories and reflections that await the reader of Dr. George."—Glen W. Davidson, from the Foreword

"Only Dr. Mitchell could have written this book. He combines a keen perception and memory with a description of the changes in medical practice over the last two or three generations."—Donald F. Tingley, Professor Emeritus, Eastern Illinois University

"This book is a vivid evocation of life in a small Illinois community from the turn of the century to the present… Because of the author’s remarkable powers of observation of the sights and sounds and feel of small-town life, we gain an unusual glimpse into both medical practice and everyday life in a largely forgotten era."   —Thomas Neville Bonner, Distinguished Professor of History, Wayne State University