Return to the Land

and by Christmas we had lost 14 members of our class. However, I was fully dedicated by now and so the happiest days of all my education was spent in medical training. New friends were made but most of all each day brought new knowledge and challenges. During the summer months for the next four years we would return to the farm to help my father. I never lost attachment for the farm and it kept luring me back. As fate would have it during my junior year in med school our first son, David Stafford Miller, III, was born. Davy, as he was nicknamed, became a happy and pleasant child. School was demanding and I couldn’t spend much time with the children but when I had the opportunity we went on picnics and to the park. While summering on the farm the children grew in stature and acquired knowledge of the exciting animals and farm life. Davy learned to fish the creek that developed into a lifelong avocation of fly-fishing. On June 3, 1962 graduation from M.C.V. was completed and I received my doctorate in medicine graduating in the top one-third of the class. All the grandparents were there and gave a sigh of relief for now they could live a little more comfortably with the school bills behind them. Now I could make a living for my family but I didn’t realize the internship wo uld not be lucrative. I interned at Lewis-Gale Hospital in Roanoke, Virginia at the stipend of $500.00 monthly, but we survived. Tragedy was soon to befall the family in the spring of 1963. Sara, who was now 5 years old, was diagnosed with a childhood malignancy of the eye known as retinoblastoma. This was such a rarity she was referred to Dr. Robert Ellsworth at the Eye Institute at the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. The years that followed were spent in anxiety and fear. She received radiation therapy, light coagulopathy, chemotherapy, and finally the enucleation of her left eye. This event changed the course of my medical training. I had wanted to become a country doctor but we were now overwhelmed by Sara’s illness. We made frequent trips to New York and I decided to stay on at Lewis-Gale as a first-year resident in Internal Medicine. In the late 1960’s the drafting of young men for the military was still in effect. I was still on the role of the draft board in Bland. They had given me a medical deferment for one year because of Sara’s illness. However, I had a n obligation to my country and in the spring of 1964 I entered the U.S. Air Force with the rank of Captain. My basic medical education was completed but I had to interrupt my specialty training to serve in the armed forces. We were stationed in Washington, D.C. and I worked in the Andrews Air Force Base Hospital being in charge of the NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer) ward for the next two years. During this time Sara continued to be treated in New York. Military pay was decent but I was too independent to make the Air Force a career. They offered me a residency at Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland but I chose the private sector instead with Jan’s approval and encouragement. I applied for a residency at the Medical College of Virginia and was accepted as a second-year resident in Medicine. On discharge from the military I resigned my commission and moved back to Richmond and spent another two years in training at M.C.V. We rented a home on West 42 nd Street adjacent to Forest Hill Park where Sara and Davy spent many hours playing

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