I first arrived in Alaska as a long-haired wannabe beatnik during the summer after my senior year of high school in California. Working in one of the salmon canneries on the Kenai Peninsula, I remember telling myself that I would one day return.

I ended up taking the scenic route back that included a stop in Maryland/D.C. for a research position at the NIH, medical school in the Bronx at Albert Einstein, and an Internal Medicine residency at Beth Israel in New York City.

Having decided later in residency that I wanted to forego the comforts of an allergy fellowship and pursue critical care, I had a year to kill in Bemidji, MN working as a hospitalist. There I learned that you CAN drive on a frozen lake, that the ice fishing scene in Grumpy Old Men is more non-fiction than fiction, and that Paul Bunyan was born in more than one northern Minnesotan town at the same time.

In any case, I was lined up to return to New York to begin my fellowship in Pulmonary & Critical Care when I met my future wife in the land of the lakes just before I left. I must have been bewitched because after a few months, I ended up back in Minnesota to finish my Critical Care fellowship at Mayo Clinic and to eventually put a shiny ring on her finger. So, here I am back in Alaska looking forward to good-times, good company, and memorable adventures. Oh, and I like taking care of people too!