WHAT is it like to begin the practice of medicine in a small city after a professional lifetime as an academician? The short answer, with some important disclaimers, is that it is fun. This realization comes as a surprise after years, now, of constant pounding by medical editorialists who bemoan the takeover of the profession by commercial and political interests, by harsh critics who range from the lunatic fringe that sees us as demonic tormentors of helpless animals or as sleazy conspirators who withhold cancer cures to social planners whose proposals imply that we are nothing more than greedy manipulators of regulations put in place to constrain that very greed.
While I have been a part of the medical community in the city of Boise, Idaho, for the past 6 years, I have engaged in solo practice only for the past 2 years, not enough time, perhaps, to identify the