The Last Family Doctor: Remembering My Father’s Medicine

(Keynote Books) This book is a moving biography of Stepansky’s father, William Stepansky, a physician in the decades after World War II, as well as a commentary on the evolution of primary care medicine in the United States over the last 60 years. In this portrait of a real general practitioner who practiced in small, rural communities in eastern Pennsylvania, the reader learns about an earlier era of medicine and a compassionate and caring doctor who embodied everything that was right about “modern medicine.”   The author traces his father’s journey to medicine — from the village of Kishinev in Rumania where he was born, to South Philadelphia where he was raised and educated. And the author describes his father’s violin studies, pharmacy training, battlefield surgery, laboratory work, and his acceptance to Jefferson Medical College in 1947, among other topics. Stepansky is a historian of medicine and a retired publisher of mental health books and journals.