If one is born and raised in Michigan on the south shore of Lake Superior, then he or she can be labeled a bona fide "Yooper". The author is a qualified, proud "Yooper". After undergraduate school at Northern Michigan University, he went on to a medical degree from the U. of Michigan and an internship.
After being recruited by the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia he was sent to Alaska as an EIS (Epidemiology Intelligence Service) officer. Infectious diseases were surging in the new 49th State while the local public health resources were meager. The new recruit was required to get 'boots on the ground' and start to improve conditions especially in the remote Eskimo villages.
After that task started in 1965 to 1967 the author went 'outside' for more training and then returned to Alaska for another ten years. With others, he established the dialysis program and other crisis care medical services for the area and for the State. That crisis management allowed a Russian woman to survive a near-death experience. When she recovered, the author took her home to Moscow at the height of the Cold War. The experiences and contacts in Moscow are unique and even shocking. Few travelers discovered so much about the Cold War in the USSR as did the author.
Surviving the rough and tumble medical politics and other stresses continued for the author through 1980. He then re-adopted his "yooper" status and returned to complete a career in his beloved Upper Peninsula.
The Alaska work and effort was tumultuous and rewarding. His book, Alaskacare: Maria and the Others is a detailed accounting of that fifteen-year period.
