Dr. James was raised by a village in Liberty, North Carolina. His mother was a music teacher and father was a butcher. After graduating from Liberty High School he worked his way through the University of North Carolina and received his Medical Degree in 1955. His rotating internship and Pediatric residency were completed at the Children’s Hospital at Ohio State University. He began his military career at Montgomery Alabama. He was stationed at March AFB in Riverside, Ca. and Misawa AFB in Japan. After returning to the US he completed a Fellowship in Family Care Medicine at The Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston Mass under the leadership of Dr. Joel Alpert.

In 1965 he was appointed an Assistant Professor in the department of Pediatrics at the University of Kentucky Medical School in Lexington, Ky. While there, he was director of Pediatric clinics, established and ran the Cystic Fibrosis program. He received a grant from NIH, founded and directed the University Affiliated Center for Children with Disabilities and established an Audiology program in the University Hospital. His “Care by Parent” program, allowing parents to stay with hospitalized children and participate in their care, served as a model for pediatric wards throughout the nation. He served as a visiting professor at the School of Public Health in Pittsburg, Pa. teaching about the effects of hospitals on children. He ran traveling clinics for children throughout the Appalachian mountains of Eastern Kentucky. These clinics were part of the teaching program for pediatric residents and students of medicine and nursing.

In 1975 he joined the staff of the University of Kansas medical school, Wichita Branch, where he taught child development, not only to pediatric trainees but to Wichita State University students of Physical Therapy and Nursing. He ran the clinic for Premature and High Risk infants, and the Children with Disabilities program. Students of many disciplines accompanied him on the traveling clinics across Western Kansas. As the Medical Physician at the Institute of Logopedics, he worked with many autistic children and adults. He ran a large private practice of Pediatrics. He completed Flight Surgeon training at Brooks AFB in San Antonio and worked with pilots at McConnell AFB in Wichita. In Kansas he met his future wife, Dr. Dessie James who taught Counseling in the College of Education and had a private practice for women and children.

In 1985 they moved to San Antonio, Texas where he developed a private practice of pediatrics and became an adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at the U of Texas HSC. At Santa Rosa Children’s Hospital he ran the clinic for high risk infants and a clinic for Autistic children. With his wife they established the Texas Center for Autism Research and Treatment. At Wilford Hall Medical Center he completed his USAF career and retired as a Bird Colonel. As a member of the Masons, and the Shrine, he played in the Shrine Oriental Band. His first book was a memoire entitled “A Community Of Healers” released in 2008.