A Grand Slam Life: A Physician Gets Covid, Finds His Way, and Works to Transform a Texas Community

A workaholic physician for more than 30 years, often at the expense of family, Milton Haber defied convention in his internal medicine practice in marginalized Laredo, Texas. House calls, groceries, cash, prescriptions, birthday cakes, Thanksgiving turkeys, and paying utility bills for patients were common occurrences, as was his quest to do more. In 2018 he founded Laguna Clinical Research Associates, helping thousands of South Texans by partnering with drug companies to execute clinical trials. Laguna partnered with Moderna in 2020 to execute the COVID-19 vaccine trials, a challenging feat in a minority community that mistrusts science. Catching the virus himself, the doctor spent a week in intensive care, in and out of consciousness and under pandemic rules totally alone. He thought deeply about family, friends, and death. The experience broke him wide open to the intrinsic power of love. It underscored the importance of the vaccine. It revealed on practical and spiritual levels the disposition needed for all of us to live together in a drastically altered post-COVID world.