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After retirement from medical，my wife and I built our home in a gated community surrounded by yacht clubs and golf courses on Hilton Head Island. But when I left for the other side of the island，I was traveling on unpaved roads lined with leaky cottages. The“lifestyle”of many of the native islanders stood in shocking contrast to my comfortable existence.
By talking to the local folks，I discovered that the vast majority of the maids，gardeners，waitresses and construction workers who make this island work had little or no access to medical care. It seemed outrageous to me. I wondered why someone didn’t do something about that. Then my father’s words，which he had asked his children daily when they were young，rang in my head again：“What did you do for someone today？”
Even though my father had died several years before，I guess I still didn’t want to disappoint him. So I started working on a solution. The island was full of retired doctors. If I could persuade them to spend a few hours a week volunteering their services，we could provide free primary health care to those so desperately in need of it. Most of the doctors I approached liked the idea，so long as they could be relicensed without troubles. It took one year and plenty of persistence，but I was able to persuade the state legislators to create a special license for doctors volunteering in not-for-profit clinics.
The town donated land，local residents contributed office and medical equipment and some of the potential patients volunteered their weekends ornamenting the building that would become the clinic. We named it volunteers in Medicine and we opened its doors in 1994，fully staffed by retired physicians，nurses and dentists as well as nearly 150 nonprofessional volunteers. That year we had 5000 patient visits；last year we had 16000.
Somehow word of what we were doing got around. Soon we were receiving phone calls from retired physicians all over the country，asking for help in starting VIM clinics in their communities. We did the best we could—there are now 15 other clinics operating—but we couldn’t keep up with the need. Yet last month I think my father’s words found their way up north，to McNeil Consumer Healthcare，the maker of Tylenol（泰诺：一种感冒药）. A major grant from McNeil will allow us to respond to these requests and help establish other free clinics in communities around the country.
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