Dr. Franks received his M.D. degree from the University of London, England, escaped with his American wife to Rochester, New York, where he completed residency training in 1979 and joined the faculty there. For the next 20 years he adopted many guises, including residency director, research director, medical director, and associate chair before seeing the light and moving to Sacramento. Apart from clinical work, and teaching, his focus is on research. His research interests are appropriately diverse for a family physician and include health services research with an emphasis on the role of primary care in the health care system, study design in primary care settings, and psychosocial factors affecting health, health care, and health care delivery.