Defying expectations of a woman growing up in Arizona in the 1960s, Patricia fled to the vibrant streets of San Francisco to come out as a lesbian after years to trying to be a "normal" girl. Her dream of becoming a doctor drew her back to college in Arizona and on to medical school in conservative Salt Lake City.

Though Patricia enjoyed a supportive friendship with a male colleague, she longed for an equal, loving relationship with a woman. But her graduate medical training in Boston with its emotional demands, long hours, social isolation, lack of sleep compounded by the free-wheeling sexual revolution of the 1970s complicated her love life. Often disappointed, but never defeated, Patricia, armed with wit and determination, battle on agains sex discrimination and homophobia, plunging into a life that was never boring and certainly never without passion.