American Doctor

John Edward McCarville, fondly called Jack is the second child of an Irish Catholic family of eight, growing up on a farm in Moorland, Iowa. Frail and stricken with asthma he traveled to Arizona alone at the age of 17 years for his respiratory health. He set his goals on becoming a doctor and attended premedical classes at a college in Tempe, Arizona now known as Arizona State University (ASU). After discharge from the Army, he graduated in medicine from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska in 1951. Married and moving back to Phoenix, Arizona he set up a general practice in 1953 next to an old-fashioned soda fountain pharmacy in the Wagon Wheel shopping center. He ran a successful practice in family medicine for years before the advent of managed care. He warned the nation of the dangers of suffocation from plastic bags, became an avid pilot, was Flight Surgeon for the Arizona Army National Guard and examined a 9/11 terrorist. Major changes in the health care insurance industry propelled him from family practice into aviation medicine full time. Still in practice today, he is one of the few First Class FAA Medical Examiners in the state of Arizona. This book describes his Irish Catholic heritage and life experiences with the evolution of medical care, insurance, technology and the market force dynamics of the healthcare industry from the depression era until present day.