Sixty years ago, modern medicine finally made its way to New Mexico. As World War II wound down, the state was a quaint backwater filled with aging quacks, Grade C medical graduates, and a vest-pocket professional organization. A group of young-gun doctors and an ex-Marine from Oklahoma changed all that. The state boomed with postwar specialists and patients seeking the sun, and the New Mexico Medical Society (NMMS) quarterbacked the sea changes in state health care. At any number of tipping points--physician shortages, malpractice nightmares, and the crisis of managed care--the state Society...