Host Gary Epstein's guest is Dr. David Hexter, practicing emergency physician in Baltimore and president of the Maryland State Medical Society (known as MedChi). He tells the story of his first spontaneous entrance into organized medicine. And he describes the transformation of emergency medicine since the 1980s and 90s, when treatments were much less sophisticated and the hospital emergency department was often starved of resources. Contrast with the recognition today that the emergency department is the public face — the front door — of the hospital.