Island Intern

In the wake of a devastating storm, a young doctor struggles to save lives while desperately searching for the love of his life.

Island Intern follows Dr. Douglas Schuler through his first year of practice in Galveston, Texas, in 1900 — a prosperous port city and a moment of real progress in medicine. Then the hurricane slams into the island. Known simply as “the Great Storm,” it remains remains the deadliest natural disaster in United States history. Schuler is left searching for the woman he loves while treating the injured and the contagious in a city that has largely ceased to exist.

Just weeks earlier, Schuler, who just graduated from the University of Texas Medical College in Galveston, decided to stay on as a hospital intern rather than return home to his family ranch in the Texas Hill Country.  His close-knit German immigrant family needs his help back home. But it’s an exciting era of modern medicine, and he has spent the past four years living in this glamorous coastal city.

He wrestles with life-and-death decisions on behalf of his patients, all under the intense scrutiny of the hospital faculty. Working day and night, he battles fatigue, loneliness and self-doubt. But he has fallen in love with Rosa, and he’s determined to win her heart. Then, disaster strikes. A massive hurricane levels the city, killing thousands. The devastation is overwhelming, and Schuler’s medical skills are more in demand than ever as he struggles to save the lives of fellow survivors. Contagious diseases run rampant, adding to the death toll and threatening the lives of the health care workers  fighting to save the injured. And what of Rosa? Did she and her family survive? If he finds her, can he still hope to win her heart?

In this debut novel, Paul Remmers, a Galveston-born physician with forty years in internal medicine and a UTMB faculty appointment casts a story of hope, ambition, love, and hardship against the backdrop of one of the most devastating disasters in American history.