Book excerpt: The emergency medical profession in New York City is a forever changing picture painted daily on a living canvas, by hundreds of incredibly talented and diverse artists, each with his or her own stories to live with. Disposable Heroes is my account of this, straight up and from the heart. Shockingly serious, yet at times light-hearted and amusing. Along with a few stunningly candid and graphic photographs, it tells about, from firsthand dramatic experience, the triumphs and frustrations of working with all types of people, during the time of their most pressing immediate emergencies.