Author of Hearts
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David C. Heyman, M.D., retired after forty-three years in the medical practice of anesthesiology. Renewing his interest in creative writing, he is now pursuing ideas that he recalls from talking with patients, raising four children, and keeping up with current events. His first printed book is Money Grows on Trees! Economics for Teens, in which his main motive was to tell his grandchildren how hard their parents had to work to provide for them. Next, he wrote three eBooks—plays in a series called Neighbors—based on families in rural Pennsylvania during the gas-drilling boom. Recently, he wrote Slip of the Tongue, a dark morality play about a small-town radio talk-show host. That was followed by a series of iconoclastic, humorous stories called Ether Frolics. He lives in Montoursville, PA, and enjoys reading and participating in local cultural events. He also plays the piano for challenge and relaxation.
How do we make progress in the practice of medicine? Is progress made only in test tubes in someone's sophisticated lab in Boston or some other big city? What about the rest of us? As far as patients in small towns and rural areas are concerned, how do they take advantage of progress made in the big medical centers? In this 1979 story, Dr. John Rockwell Cameron has witnessed patients dying because they couldn't get timely heart surgery in the big city. He has his own ideas for taking care of them where he practices in rural South Fork, Pennsylvania. He initiates a self-funded plan for doing heart surgery, and runs into opposition from other physicians and hospital administration. In Hearts, we see how Rocky's family and his efforts change surgical practices. We can judge for ourselves if there is a reward for doctors who do the right thing in the face of opposition.