Following his career in healthcare Dr. Hill retired, still feeling the need for challenges in his life. In pursuit of another challenge, Dr. Hill followed his daughter into the teaching profession, a profession he originally had pursued over twenty years earlier. Over the past decade and a half he has challenged his students to bump up their career aspirations. He still teaches middle school Science and STEM classes in Medical Investigation. Dr. Richard Griffith never imagined a career in medicine when he was young. He eventually recognized that his passion lay in solving everyday problems. He went to graduate school in electrical engineering and became interested in medical applications for engineering tools. This experience motivated him to attend medical school and eventually complete his residency in anesthesiology. He since has done private practice, worked as a medical director in a major medical device company, and finally finished his career in academic medicine teaching medical students and resident physicians. Now retired in Vermont, he has been working in the important cause of safer medical care. Russ Hill and Richard Griffith are First Cousins who grew up on opposite sides of this country, Griffith in Virginia and Hill in California. Griffith was thirteen and Hill was eleven when they first met. Griffith’s family had driven west for his Father to attend a summer workshop in economics and to visit their distant Hill relatives. They made that 6,000 miles round trip in the middle of summer with no radio or air conditioner in their car. Times were tough back then. The two cousins did not see one other in person again until seventeen years later when Hill’s family visited the Griffith family in Virginia. In the ensuing years they have communicated by email as their friendship grew. They have gotten together a few times in New York, Montana, and Vermont, where Griffith now lives. In spite of the geographical barrier, they successfully collaborated by many e-mails for over a year in order to write this book. Raella Hill married Russ more than 45 years ago, first meeting him in high school. She worked in hospitals before taking several years off to raise her two children. She then studied art and immersed herself in ceramics, photography, painting, and printmaking. Her final career job was as office manager for architectural photographers. Her interests now include her four grandchildren, printmaking, and yoga.
