Articles

My son suffered a gruesome injury at the beginning of summer—on the last day of school, just a few minutes before I picked him up from a get-together with his rat pack of middle-school pals. Tag in the woods behind the house, night coming on. Tripped on a root along the path, fell head-first onto the jagged end of a fallen branch.

How doctors across the country—fed up, burned-out, and disillusioned—are trying to reclaim the soul of medicine.

I start lucky. Two friends in Southeast Alaska have a permit and a boat and invite me to join them as a deckhand, gillnetting. For three summers, we share a bunk and work within a few feet of each other, coming back to Juneau most weekends, grilling and playing ping-pong. We don’t get rich, which is fine.