"A GEM OF A BOOK." --Donald Berwick, MD
50 years ago a uniform organ donation law had not been enacted, the physician assistant wasn't a profession, bioethics wasn't a field, and emergency medical services was a hearse or a painted station wagon with a driver who had inadequate medical training, and 9-1-1 didn't yet exist.
From 1967 to 1976, Alfred Sadler and Blair Sadler, a doctor and a lawyer, who are also twin brothers, collaborated on major decisions and laws which had multigenerational and lifesaving impacts in our country including:
✓ The transformation of emergency medicine from a wasteland to a vital component of health care
✓ The development of the universal state law (Uniform Anatomical Gift Act) authorizing organ donation and transplantation
✓ The birth of the brand-new physician assistant profession
✓ The emergence of bioethics as a core principle in healthcare today
In Pluck, the Sadlers share their extraordinary story of helping to create change in four different areas of healthcare in just nine years, while working at the National Institutes of Health, Yale University Medical School, The Hastings Center on Bioethics, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The book also highlights 15 lessons for catalyzing change that endure and are relevant today. Pluck will inspire, motivate, and educate the next generation who are committed to making positive changes in our world.
Alfred Sadler, M.D. ScD (Hon) FACP. He is Co-Founder of the Physician Assistant Program at California State University Monterey Bay in 2015 and is President of the Cypress Foundation - dedicated to improving physician and PA workforce in the tri county area where he lives. He was trained in Surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and in internal medicine at the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital. He practiced primary care in Monterey County for nearly forty years with emphasis on underserved populations. He is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha and in 2018 was recognized as "Physician of the Year" by the Monterey County Medical Society. He is a coauthor of The Physician Assistant: An Illustrated History in 2013. He lives in Carmel, California.
Blair Sadler, J.D. is a senior fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), and a member of the faculty at the University of California San Diego's Rady School of Management. Through teaching and presentations, he remains a strong advocate for evidence-based architectural design, healing arts in health care, transforming health care's environmental impact, and leading with transparency and empathy in times of crisis. A graduate of Amherst College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, he was a law clerk for the Superior Court of Pennsylvania. From 1980 to 2006, he was the president and CEO of the Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego. He has served on the board of the Hastings Center for 12 years and is a member of the board of Health Care without Harm, an environmental health advocacy organization. He chairs the Board of Access Youth Academy, a San Diego nonprofit devoted to transforming the lives of underserved youth. He lives in La Jolla, California.
