While in college , Fawcett illustrated a book on athletic bandaging that had been written by the football team 's physician . This may have been his only contribution as an illustrator ; his later and more widely popular books were illustrated by Sylvia Collard Keen . In the summers , Fawcett worked on Bailey Island off the coast of Maine , where he embalmed and prepared small sharks for sale to colleges for comparative anatomy courses . This early interest in anatomy served him well when he trained in surgery at Harvard . Fawcett 's predominant memory of his clinical training was being on duty in the emergency ward the night of the infamous Cocoanut Grove Nightclub disaster of 1942 , which claimed 492 lives in one of the deadliest fires in American history . " We had been having a quiet evening when , without advance notice , we received 115 seriously burned patients within an hour and a half . Mobilizing all of the off-duty staff that I could reach , I continued on duty for 30 hours doing all I could to relieve the pain and dress the burns of the victims . " He received his M.D. in 1942
Cocoanut Grove Nightclub disaster
Cocoanut Grove fire
Don W. Fawcett