Dear Folks:
A Memoir From 500 Letters recounts the personal and professional life of Richard F. Leighton, M.D., Sc.D. (Hon) a cardiologist and physician educator. The memoir is based on all the letters he wrote his parents from the 1940s to the 1980s that were saved by his mother and brother, then rediscovered by his nephew. This correspondence has been supplemented by letters Dr. Leighton wrote to his late wife before their marriage and by letters his daughter wrote from abroad: totaling altogether over 500 letters. In this memoir Dr. Leighton has matched the lessons he learned with the people and episodes that taught him as he evolved from a schoolboy into a physician and educator in the hope that readers who aspire to a similar career path might gain some insights that would prove useful to them.