Last updated on October 13, 2024
I had three main inspirations for my latest medical historical fiction book, THE COMMITTEE WILL KILL YOU NOW:
First: The real-life history of “The God Committee” in early-1960s Seattle, WA.
The committee consisted primarily of laypeople who secretly decided which people would receive the first kidney hemodialysis in the U.S.
Rationing of healthcare.
It’s one of those situations where the more you learn, the more you can’t believe it happened. That’s why we can never forget.
News of the committee broke to the world in an exposé article in Life Magazine by Shana Alexander in November 1962.
Secondly, I wanted to tell the “villain origin story” of the antagonist in my first book, THE ALGORITHM WILL SEE YOU NOW.
In my first book, Dr. Marah Maddox is a senior physician who fought tooth and nail to get where she is. Readers meet her long after she has lost her moral compass.
In COMMITTEE, readers will now meet her as a young surgical resident physician in the 1990s and will learn the events that set her on that path.
Yes, that means THE COMMITTEE WILL KILL YOU NOW is historical medical fiction and a prequel to THE ALGORITHM WILL SEE YOU NOW. But each can be read as a standalone novel or in either order. (Find out more about both books here).
Thirdly, by writing a medical historical fiction book, I wanted to shed light on the “villain origin story” of modern medical culture:
In other words, the abuse of young residents. The system demands trainees work unlimited hours and deprives them of basic bodily needs such as sleep. It treats them as less than human.
This results in no good for patients or doctors.
It’s a concept of dark academia where medicine itself is the secret society killing people.
I talk more about ‘The God Committee’ and list more of my sources and resources in writing a medical historical fiction novel in the Author’s Note at the end of the book.
