It looked for a while like Michael Collins would spend his life breaking concrete and throwing rocks for the Vittorio Scalese Construction Company. He liked the work and he liked the pay. But a chance remark by one of his coworkers made him realize that he wanted to involve himself in something bigger, something more meaningful than crushing rocks and drinking beer. In his acclaimed first memoir, Hot Lights, Cold Steel , Collins wrote passionately about his four-year surgical residency at the prestigious Mayo Clinic. Blue Collar, Blue Scrubs turns back the clock, taking readers from his days as a construction worker to his entry into medical school, expertly infusing his journey to become a doctor with humanity, compassion and humor. From the first time he delivers a baby to being surrounded by death and pain on a daily basis, Collins compellingly writes about how medicine makes him confront, in a very deep and personal way, the nature of God and suffering—and how delicate life can be. "Collins has a poet's soul, whether describing the sunrise through a laborer's eyes or what it means to be human through a physician's...Literary talent produces this fast-paced memoir filled with easy, unforced dialogue and authentic characters from all walks of life." -- Booklist "Collins has a superb ear for dialogue, and his breezy style makes his world spring to life." --Kirkus Reviews "This is a perceptive, no-frills memoir of a surgeon who succeeded by dint of hard work and brains." -- Publishers Weekly MICHAEL J. COLLINS, M.D., served as the Chief Resident in Orthopedic Surgery at the prestigious Mayo Clinic and is now a successful orthopedic surgeon. He is the author of the acclaimed medical memoir Hot Lights, Cold Steel . He lives in Hinsdale, Illinois. Chapter One In the final stirrings of the night, the door opens and I'm back in the hole, throwing rocks. I've filled another truck with them. But Angelo isn't taking them to the dump. Instead, they're going somewhere else. . . . I roll over and flail again at the alarm clock. It's 5:00 A.M. I'm late and I know it. I groan, push myself up, and run a hand across my face. I throw off the blanket, struggle to my feet, yank on my jeans, and throw a T-shirt over my shoulder. I sleep on the floor in the attic of my parents' house, and as I pad downstairs in my bare feet, the house is quiet. My parents and seven younger brothers won't be up for another hour or two. As I pass Tim's room, I bump open the door with my hip and flip on the light. Tim is lying on his right side, sheets twisted around him. I call his name and tell him I had fun with Diane last night. Diane is Tim's girlfriend. "I think I finally convinced her she is going out with the wrong brother," I tell him. Tim yawns, pulls the sheets over his head, and tells me to keep dreaming. "What girl in her right mind would go out with you?" he asks. I scratch my head, realize Tim is probably right, and turn off the light. Down in the kitchen, Shannon is curled up in the corner. She gets slowly to her feet, stretches, and dutifully shuffles over. I bend down, scratch her behind the ears, and tell her she is beautiful. Shannon yawns and goes back to the corner. I wolf down a couple bananas and pour a glass of orange juice. As I am drinking the juice, I grab eight slices of bread, lather four with peanut butter, four with jelly, then fold them into sandwiches and toss them in a paper bag. In the corner of the icebox I find a boiled potato, two apples, and a plastic bowl of macaroni and cheese. I throw them in the bag, too. I fill my old, quart-glass Coke bottle with water, grab my boots from the back door, and trot out to the car. I toss my boots and lunch on the seat next to my hard hat, plop down into the driver's seat, and start the ignition. Blue-gray smoke belches from the exhaust as the old Pontiac rumbles into life. It is ten to six when I jam on the brakes outside the ten-foot-high chain-link fence that surrounds the Vittorio Scalese Construction Company. The morning sun is streaming down Grand Avenue. Bakery trucks and newspaper vans are dragging long shadows behind them as they head east into the city. I grab my hard hat and lunch bag, slam the door of the Pontiac, and sprint through the gates past the large pile of wooden stakes that dominates the center of the yard. Behind the stakes, a thirty-foot-high shed with a corrugated iron roof shelters a table saw, more stakes, and two enormous piles of black dirt. Fred is standing at the door of his office. He looks at his watch and says, "Good afternoon, Senator. Where the hell you been? Your crew left half an hour ago." I tell Fred I'm sorry I'm late. "Save the bullshit," he says. "Now take The Rat and get your ass out with your crew. You're lucky I didn't send Vito in your place and let you spend a couple a days workin' here in the yard." Working in the yard is easy, but it's punishment. The yard is for guys who