Prison edginess fills doctor's novel - as it did his days.(Evening)

Byline: Kate Nelson Commentary

In 1995, Dr. Joe Wise left a cardiology practice in New England and moved to Santa Fe. He wasn't ready for easy living, but his efforts to find a new job stalled.

Then he saw the billboard.

"New Mexico needs doctors," it blared.

When he called the phone number on the sign, he learned the doctors were needed by inmates in New Mexico's roughest, toughest prison.

"Well," Wise figured, "it beats nothing."

Thus began two years of daily lessons in life behind the bars and beyond our view.

Every day, the new medical director for the Penitentiary of New Mexico entered a plain, concrete …