My Story

Growing up in a blue-collar neighborhood in Davenport, Iowa provided me a mixture of opportunity, adversity, and a longing to experience the world. My early youth was spent dreaming of becoming a Yankee while learning the 3 R’s in the no-nonsense, public school system. As reality struck and the factory doors awaited me, I realized that my potential for a college scholarship was greater intellectually than athletically. With the encouragement and financial support of the women in my family, I graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BA from Grinnell College. My academic strengths were in science, and I was encouraged to apply to medical school by a biology professor, who also happened to be the pre-med advisor. Having never been in a hospital—let alone ever considered that I was smart enough to apply to medical school—I, thankfully, took his advice and never regretted the path it provided me. After graduating from the U. of Iowa College of Medicine, I did my internship at the county hospital in Oakland, California. Interested in the developing, new specialty of emergency medicine, I became the first emergency physician at Penrose Hospital in 1974, ultimately becoming board certified and practicing there and at Penrose Community Hospital for twenty-nine years. I met and married the Director of Nursing, Mary Wall, becoming better known as Mr. Mary Wall rather than Dr. Richard Wall. Our success together is summed up by realizing that she’s the politician and I’m the clinician.

No matter where an emergency physician practices, incredible stories of the human condition will emerge; even without the addition of embellishment. Though I wouldn’t consider my experience in the ER very “fun”, it was never dull. Despite taking the intellectual path in my career, I continued my interests in sports by becoming a competitive mountain biker, XTERRA triathlete, and a sports physician at the USOC. I became board certified in hospice and palliative medicine and practiced it part time for fifteen years. During my semi-retirement, I have also been the cruise physician on two voyages for Semester at Sea. My physician career has provided me the kind of incredible opportunities to experience the world while working, competing, and playing that I only fantasized about in my youth. I still remember those sultry summer evenings, long ago when I stood hunched over on our house’s front stoop peering out at the stars and wondering what was to become of me. Life has afforded me the kind of great adventure that has rivaled those dreams of my youth. My storytelling is in appreciation to all those who have facilitated this charmed journey. Fact can be stranger than fiction. My goal is to relate them better as well as I lived them.

UPDATE:

Much has changed in my life since I last updated my BIO. Saddest is that both my son, Ryan, died 01/05/16 of complications related to his alcoholism, and my wife, Mary, died 12/18/21 of metastatic breast cancer. Despite his disease, Ryan remained a good fellow who everyone loved to his last day. Being married to Mary for almost forty years was a true honor. All of those who knew her will remember her as a beautiful person inside and out. She touched so many in her nursing career and community activities, always positive and with a smile.

As for me, I am carrying on trying to move forward in my life which has been challenged this past several months. At the end of January I fell off my bike fracturing my hip. Unfortunately, it was operated on in the Virgin Islands where an incompetent orthopedist infected me making his incision through my abrasion with a bacteria which I’m still receiving antibiotics. Fortunately, through five operations and the great care I have received in Colorado Springs, I am slowly recovering from a devastating injury which nearly killed me and ruined my life.

Currently, I am three weeks in recovery of a knee replacement hoping to get back to my active life better than ever in a few months. I plan to winter in Sarasota, Florida where I started college at New College years ago. Sarasota has always been a special place for me where I hope to renew my life enjoying golfing, biking, and the beach.