Tucson, Arizona
Manuscript Seminar
I live north of Tucson, Arizona, in the oldest house on my grandparents’ homestead, where my closest neighbors are saguaro cacti and snakes. I spent 3 decades as an academic pediatrician and toxicologist, mostly treating and studying the effects of scorpion and snake venom on my patients. I published scientific work on venom and antivenom, in various professional journals; and I enjoyed a little notoriety over an obsessive quest to get a Mexican antidote approved by the US FDA. Along the way parts of the story were told in Men’s Journal, National Geographic TV, LA Times, New York Times, All Things Considered, Popular Mechanics and La Jornada (Morelos). Being a subject for other writers was fun; but it has been frustrating never to have told the full story, my own way – a situation I intend to correct in 2019.