A Diffident Doctor tells one doctor's personal story, with all its ups and downs, from childhood to retirement.  Beginning in a small Illinois town, to a Harvard College scholarship, to medical school at Yale, it describes his research in virology and the teaching and consulting in pediatric infectious diseases in Wisconsin.  It is a stark, but unbiased perspective on the medical practices of the times, up through the present. It may be of interest to medical and other health care professionals, as well as to students and the general public.