My next book is out on Amazon. It is autobiographical, My Life in Words and Pictures. It is my twenty-second book. I write this book to tell my life story in words and pictures. I have had an interesting life. I was the first child of my parents who escaped a death sentence from the archvillain Joseph Stalin, co-founder of the USSR. My parents had firsthand experience with Communism as well as with National Socialism and lived to tell about it. They wound up in Austria, where I was born and started grade school. Our family immigrated to the USA in 1953 after Dwight D. Eisenhower lifted the ban on accepting individuals who had fled Stalin’s “worker paradise”. I pursued a career in medicine/surgery and practiced that profession for over half a century, with a variety of challenges, close brushes with contracting potential fatal diseases like HIV and Hepatitis C by being exposed to infected patients’ blood and other body fluids, along with other interesting patients, some with very complex problems, horrendous accidents that some sadly did not survive during my trauma phase of my surgical career. My military career was during the Vietnam era, but I was stationed in a tropical paradise, Tercera island in the Azores. I must say that I bravely defended Tercera, and not one Vietcong made it onto the island (kidding). I had interesting experiences, such as triumphing in a court-martial with help from Strom Thurmond, then Chair of the Armed Services Committee, and subsequently being promoted to Major in the USAF. After returning to the US, I was a general practitioner for six years but decided to become a surgeon instead. Going back to school at age 35 was a story in and of itself. I asked permission to do so from my wife, but after six weeks of our new life, she said, “What have you done with our lives!” Near the end of my surgical career, I founded a 5-year surgical residency program that graduates three newly minted surgeons every year, where I served as professor of surgery. I got the ACGME (Accreditation Committee for Graduate Medical Education) to accredit our program, not a minor task. I have one daughter, Amber, and a son-in-law, Mike, who gave us two lovely grandchildren. I am now retired and occupy my time with what Leo Tolstoy calls the only honorable profession, farming. I grow lemons and avocados on our 80-acre ranch, write books, and sculpt. I would also like to leave a roadmap of my experiences for my children, grandchildren, and beyond, so they can tell from whence they came.
Guaranteed, you will not be bored by this book! It is available on Amazon under Gosta Iwasiuk