Greetings from the Eastern Sierra! We hope this Holiday Season finds you happy, healthy and prosperous!  For us, life is an ongoing adventure. We feel so blessed to seek personal growth and new challenges as we are in our “Golden Years”!  We also continue to feel blessed with good health and jobs we enjoy and a passion to learn new things!  I recently had cryosurgery for early, non-invasive prostate cancer and am recovering.

My work at the Southern Inyo Hospital Medical Clinic has been reduced somewhat because of a low census of patients and also from a lack of funds. The facility is using Nurse Practitioners and Physician’s Assistants more and more in order to reduce payroll. Get ready for Obamacare and fewer doctors!  We have yet to go to computerized medical records although they are impending at the office and have already been established at the hospital itself but it has been a nightmare. Look out for your privacy from governmental intervention including insurance companies and other agencies. My reduced income from the clinic situation is off-set by earnings from working for the Coroner’s Offices in Inyo and Mono Counties. The types of cases I get are varied: traffic accidents, unattended deaths, environmental, aviation crashes, suicides, etc. I remain the one and only autopsy surgeon for both Inyo and Mono counties. I find the coroner’s cases (even after 49 years) very interesting and challenging.

We have eliminated our competitive running. I still have a “string” of all of the first 30 local Wild Wild West Marathons. (We help mark the course each year for the Lone Pine Chamber of Commerce). Some marathons have been run in each Continent. That totals 138 marathons as well as 60+ ultramarathons for me. Denise has completed 107 marathons and countless ultramarathons (she didn’t keep track of the ultras).

I've been quite the sportsman in my life;here are my running, biking, swimming, and skiing exploits in shorthand.

I grew up in Claremont, California, and went to high school at Webb School of California. Then I went to Pomona College as a pre-med major and got my medical degree at UCLA Medical Center followed by a medical internship at Ohio State University Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Returning to California, I took my internal medicine residency at Memorial Hospital of Long Beach. When I first came here as an "internist" they thought I was merely an "intern." My initials are "M.R." (for Milton Randle) so they thought I was Mr. Jones, M.D. I made a hit making house calls in a Model A Ford and became accepted in the community.

A Prescription for Lifelong Living

Ben Jones, M.D., has birthed more than 1,000 babies, performed 2,000 autopsies, and run 133 marathons in his 73 years. He's learned some lessons about living the best life along the journey.

From the March 2006 issue of Men's Health Best Life
By Jeffrey J. Csatari, Executive Editor
Photograph by Bryce Duffy

In 1963, fresh from a 3-year medical residency, 30-year old Ben Jones hiked to the summit of Mount Baldy and, looking out over the smog engulfing Los Angeles, tried to envision his future in the booming city below.

"It was around the Cuban Missile Crisis, just before the Watts riots," he recalls. "I wanted out of that commotion. I didn't want to breathe pollution for over 30 years as a city doctor. I decided then, on Baldy, I wanted to be a frontier doctor—like my father."