Virtual care spreads in Missouri health system, home to ‘hospital without beds’ When Tom Becker was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat in March 2020, the 60-year-old EMS helicopter pilot from Washington, Missouri, worried he would never fly again. But his cardiologist, Dr. Christopher Allen, had served in the Air Force and knew aviation physiology. So Becker felt reassured when Allen told him he didn't expect any problems, because Becker was still fairly young. Allen told Becker — who lives about 50 minutes away from his office at Mercy Hospital South, near St. Louis — that Becker ...