Dead Wrong is a series of vignettes from Dr. McConnell's career in medicine. Several of the stories involve the Kennedy assassination. He was a medical student at Dallas' Parkland Hospital before Kennedy was assassinated and a pathology trainee there afterward. On the day of the assassination he was Medical Officer of the Day in the Pentagon and became involved in the Kennedy funeral. As a pathologist he became interested in the Kennedy autopsy and engaged in correspondence with then Republican Representative Gerald Ford, later President Ford, who was the ranking Republican on the Warren Commission. Dr. McConnell's autopsy experience with gunshot victims informs his theory that the Warren Commission came to the right conclusion but for the wrong reasons. Other stories are set on the wards of Parkland Hospital and in Jackson, Mississippi during the civli rights unrest of the 1960s. Sprinkled through these narratives are lighter pieces from Dr. McConnell's career in the military, including Paratrooper Circumcision, a story few males are likely to forget.
About the Author: Thomas H. McConnell, III was born at "old" Parkland Hospital in Dallas in 1937. His initial education was in rural East Texas, in the public schools of Sulphur Springs. He received his undergraduate education at Rice University and his M.D. degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in 1962. In 1962-63 he was an intern at the University of Mississippi Hospital in Jackson. From 1963-65 he served as a Medical Officer in the U. S. Army, first as a General Medical Officer in the Pentagon and later as Battalion Surgeon with the 101st Airborne Division. He returned to Dallas in 1965 for training in pathology at the "new" Parkland Hospital and UT Southwestern. He was a private practitioner and laboratory entrepreneur from 1969-1991. In 1997 he accepted a teaching appointment in the pathology department at UT Southwestern, where he remains on the faculty. He is author of The Nature of Disease (2007), a textbook of pathology, and is co-author with Kerry Hull of Human Form, Human Function (2010), a textbook of anatomy and physiology. He lives in Dallas with Marianne, his wife of 48 years, and two West Highland White Terriers.