Write and Write Some More
For some physician-authors, it appears that
writing begets writing. It’s not unusual for a
physician who has authored or edited a textbook to also take an editor-in-chief position at
a scientific journal.
For example, Joseph Loscalzo is a co-editor of Harrison’s Principles of Medicine and the
editor-in-chief of Circulation. Robert Bonow is
co-editor of Braunwald’s Heart Disease and
editor-in-chief of JAMA Cardiology.
But there are several notable clinical cardiologists who are editors-in-chief and textbook
authors who—in the true spirit of overachievement—have taken their prodigious talents several steps further and written multiple works
of fiction and nonfiction. The list certainly hints
towards a trend:
Valentin Fuster
• Editor-in-chief, Journal of the American
College of Cardiology
• Editor-in-chief, Nature Reviews Cardiology
(2004–2010)
• Co-author, Hurst’s the Heart, and several
other titles
• Writer of six nonfiction works in Spanish,
including El Círculo de la
Motivación (2013; The Circle of Motivation)
Thomas F. Lüscher
• Editor-in-chief, European Heart Journal
• Co-editor, European Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine
• Writer of a philosophy book, GedankenMedizin (2010), written in German
Eric Topol
• Editor-in-chief, Medscape
• Co-author, Textbook of Interventional Cardiology, among others
• Writer of The Creative Destruction of Medicine (2012) and The Patient Will See You
Now (2015)
Douglas P. Zipes
• Editor-in-chief, Practice Update/Cardiology
• Editor-in-chief, Trends in Cardiovascular
Medicine
• Co-editor, Braunwald’s Heart Disease and
Cardiac Electrophysiology, among others
• Writer of 3 mystery novels, including Not
Just a Game (2016)
A sampling of
some of the books
these doctors have
penned!
32
CardioSource W orldNews
Robin Cook
The true alchemists do not change
lead into gold; they change the
world into words.
― William H. Gass, A Temple of Texts
Doyle continued to practice medicine even after
achieving literary success but in 1891, after a neardeath experience with influenza, he decided to abandon his medical career “with a wild rush of joy.”
Not all writers of medical mysteries/thrillers
are physicians, but several notable ones are, including, arguably, the King of the Medical Mystery,
Robert Brian “Robin” Cook. Until Dr. Cook, medical doctors in fiction tended to ‘practice’ perched
atop a pedestal. (Paging Drs. Casey, Kildare, and
Welby.) All of Dr. Cook’s novels have a grittier
medical slant, starting with his first books, The
Year of the Intern (1972) and Coma (1977), all
the way to his most recent, Death Benefit (2011),
Nano (2013), Cell (2014), and Host (2015). An
ophthalmologist by training, Dr. Cook has written
33 worldwide bestsellers to date. In each, Dr. Cook
tries to elucidate various medical/biotech ethical
issues. According to his website, Dr. Cook “chose
to write thrillers as a way to use entertainment as
a method of exposing the public to public policy
conundrums such as genetic engineering, medical
economics, in vitro fertilization, research funding,
managed care, drug research, organ transplantation, stem cell research, concierge medicine, and
M.D.-owned specialty hospitals.” (Managed care as
entertainment. Think about that for a moment.)
Michael Crichton, Tess Gerritsen, and Michael
Palmer also achieved chart-topping hits as physicianwriters in the mystery, thriller, sci-fi arenas.
• Dr. Crichton (1942–2008) trained at Harvard
Medical School but never obtained a licence
to practice medicine, instead becoming a
best-selling author (Jurassic Park, 1990, among
others), producer, director, and screenwriter.
• Dr. Gerritsen (Vanish [2005] among others) started
writing during a maternity leave from her job as an
internist. She is now retired from medicine, but has
used her knowledge and fame to help raise money
for Alzheimer’s research. Many, but not all, of her
books fall under the medical thriller category. You
may know her best as the creator of pathologist
Dr. Maura Isles and her colleague and close friend,
Detective Jane Rizzoli, who live both in the pages
Dr. Gerritsen has penned and on the small screen
in the television series, Rizzoli and Isles.
Michael Crichton
James Forrester
Douglas Zipes, MD, presenting a copy of his book Ripples in
Opperman’s Pond to Shimon Peres, former president of Israel.
Eugene Braunwald, MD, is in the center.
• Dr. Palmer (1942-2013) never wanted to be a
writer, but did believe he had “some sort of creative streak hidden inside me.” He was inspired
to try writing after reading Robin Cook’s Coma;
his deeply analytical approach to his second career went something like this: “If Robin can do
it, why can’t I?” Dr. Palmer (Extreme Measures
[1991] among others) spent 20 years as a fulltime practitioner of internal and emergency
medicine, and served as an associate director
of the Massachusetts Medical Society’s physician health program, along the way writing 19
novels, several of which were bestsellers.
Beyond these superstars, there are several physician-writers who have published a book of fiction
or two, whilst keeping their day jobs. In our own
world of cardiology, two names stand out: Douglas
Zipes and Peter R. Kowey (Jefferson Medical College and Lankenau Institute for Medical Research).
Dr. Zipes is “Douglas P.” when writing as a physician and just “Doug” when writing creatively. (See
the sidebar: “Two (and Too) All-consuming Professions.”) He just published his third mystery, entitled
Not Just a Game. The release of the novel is timely in
that the story takes place, in part, during the 2016
Rio Olympics. The book tells the stories of three generations of Olympians from the same Jewish family.
The reviews have been resoundingly positive:
“Doug Zipes, undoubtedly one of this genre’s rising
stars, masterfully weaves romance, intrigue, and
suspense into an intoxicating journey through history including WWII, Nazi Germany, South America
and culminates on one of the world’s grandest
Valentin Fuster
W. Bruce Fye
June 2016