Judging Laura

JUDGING LAURA: Synopsis“…She held onto the edge of the chaise. She has drunk only a few sips of watered-down vodka. What was happening to her?. As she walked along the edge of the pool, her legs seemed to have forgotten how to work. She teetered, wind-milling her arms. She toppled over, hitting her head on the metal edge of a chaise lounge. A boy knelt beside her….he carried her to an upstairs bedroom…”Shamed by her mother, fearful of reprisal from the perpetrators, and distrustful of the justice system, she did not accuse her attackers nor seek medical help. And now, several years later, married and wanting to have a child, she learns she must face the final horror of the assault. One of her attackers gave her a venereal disease. Her fallopian tubes are damaged beyond repair. She can never conceive. From this intense and moving set-up, spins a deepening and tightening tale of medical mystery and intrigue, legal action, and human drama, which brings into focus some of the most intense social issues of our time. Laura’s resourceful doctor tells her that she may yet identify her assailants from surviving traces of DNA in her fallopian tubes, but a match must be obtained from the rapist. Michael Greene, now a surgery resident, is the prime suspect. Will Laura steal his DNA sample from the hospital where he now works? Will she press the issue further by making him face his past? Can she muster the courage to face the shame of her past and, at last, seek justice denied? Thus begins her journey for vindication through the labs and corridors of hospitals and the labyrinth of the law. Her doctor and attorney guide her along the way. Two powerful women inspired by her courage decide to champion her cause. The case is tough and gets tougher, the stakes higher and higher. Michael Greene, with his wealthy father and top-drawer legal team, fights back with blackmail, intimidation, altered evidence, and damaging photographs of Laura taken during the attack. The pendulum of fate swings back and forth from dejection to hope to despair and ends in a dramatic courtroom climax where the full force of medicine and law is brought to bear. Laura’s ultimate fate hangs on a tiny thread that leads, once again, into the past.

After earning an MD degree at Creighton University School of Medicine, and completing a medical internship, my wife, Alyce, and our first-born child, Geri, joined the Navy. I served as a Submarine Medical Officer. After a two-year stint in the Navy, I added a second year of post-graduate training at the Hunterdon Medical Center in Flemington, NJ. As a solo practitioner in general medicine in Flemington, I cared for pregnant women, their babies, young children, adults, their parents and grandparents. It was a dream come true. The practice grew rapidly and within four years the Flemington Medical Group consisted of four family physicians. The Hunterdon Medical Center became one of the earliest sites for training young doctors in the newly created specialty of Family Medicine. It was an exciting time for general practitioners. I was offered the position of director of the program. It gave me the opportunity to combine my love of patient care with my commitment to teaching young doctors both the science and art of medicine. After several years as Director of Medical Education at Hunterdon, Alyce and I and our by then six children headed south and joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. I participated in the training of medical students and Family Practice residents. For several years I directed the residency training program in the Department of Family Medicine. I took a one-year fellowship in Geriatrics at UCLA Medical Center in their Hartford Scholars program. I'm currently Emeritus Professor of Family Medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. My professional areas of interest and publications include the following: thyroid disease, tick-borne diseases, cognitive impairment and geriatric assessment. Besides writing fiction, I enjoy building furniture, love reading, movies and live theater. I follow national politics closely, play tennis reasonably well, golf poorly, and in my spare time do a little baking. I’ve published two novels, THIS THING CALLED LOVE, a coming of age story of a teenager navigating his first love as he struggles with an alcoholic father and a family that is on the verge of collapse. FORBIDDEN HARVEST is a medical drama about a twelve-year-old boy who desperately needs a heart transplant and the extremes to which his family and physicians are willing to go to get him a new heart. Both novels are available at Amazon.com, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, and independent book stores.