A good biography or autobiography should either concern an exceptional person or describe extraordinary times. This book by Jim Hardy, professor of surgery at the University of Mississippi Medical School, Jackson, for 30 years, is both.
Dr Hardy, along with an astonishing number of other current academic surgical leaders in the United States, was raised in a small Southern town in a family with strong moral values and an emphasis on the work ethic. After graduating from the University of Alabama, Birmingham, he entered the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, Philadelphia. Thereafter, he took a medical internship at that institution. Research productivity and disciplined hard work were evident from the start. During World War II, Hardy served in the Army Medical Corps in Europe and, as with so many others of this generation, was guided by this experience toward a career in surgery. He returned to the University of Pennsylvania