Alan E. Nourse was both a science fiction writer and a physician, publishing many works of fiction and non-fiction in his lifetime. "Star Surgeon" is the story of Dal Timgar, a very tall, very thin, humanoid Garvian, his body covered with fine gray hair and his only companion a small lump of sentient pink fur named Fuzzy. "But as long as Dal could remember, he had wanted to be a doctor. From the first time he had seen a General Practice Patrol ship landing in his home city to fight the plague that was killing his people by the thousands, he had known that this was what he wanted more than anything else: to be a physician of Hospital Earth . . ."