Even in the age of the genome and sophisticated biotechnology, medical progress still moves at a snail's pace. Seasoned investigators are matured by experience and they accept the virtue of the too-slow scientific process. The young, however have been brought up in a world of instant gratification, and they barrel ahead never looking back to see the havoc in their wake. So it is with Dr. Harmony Lane. In her single-minded obsession to cure her patients, she cuts corners and treats a desperately ill woman with an experimental viral vector provided by an unscrupulous research scientist. While...

Deadly Passage is a multi-layered, high seas, adventure-thriller novel of bioterrorism in a post 9/11 world. The novel operates on several levels not commonly encountered in a high-octane thriller, including insights into the terrorists, their backgrounds, rationale, and subtle conflicts within the communities from which they have been drawn that ultimately condition their decisions and actions. The responses of US governmental agencies mirror these diverse perspectives. Andy Reiss, a physician, Jesse his registered-nurse wife, and Rachel, their barely teenage daughter, head home on their...

Isabel Kramer's dream of running competitively, frustrated since age seventeen, reveals itself when, on a lark, she joins her daughter in the Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco. Now age sixty, Izzy challenges her misgivings, the sage and well-intentioned advice of family and friends, and prepares for long-distance running. Izzy, a psychiatrist and professor of psychology at UC Berkeley has no illusions about the likelihood of success and the possibility of injury, but amazingly, she outperforms the running world's and her own expectations and trains for the Boston Marathon. Barriers of...

Dr. Kimberly Powell, a Ph.D. in neuropsychology, works in a research lab trying to understand the roots of violence by stimulating the brains of aggressive rats to reduce their savagery. Her successes lead to phase I safety trials in volunteers and prisoners, and then to phase II and III studies in patients. Soon it becomes clear that Kim's brain stimulating techniques, besides controlling aggression, offer the potential to cure a number of medical problems including Parkinson's disease, depression, PTSD, and many others. When the court instructs her to treat a psychopathic killer, she's...

Out of Darkness deals with the abhorrent problem of human trafficking, the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the 21st century, ranking second after drug smuggling. There are more young American girls entering the commercial sex industry-an estimated 300,000 at this moment-and their ages have been dropping drastically-the average starting age is an alarming thirteen. Out of Darkness follows Cynthia Lange from despair-her mother selling her into sexual slavery, to her rescue by the FBI, and her difficult transition to a prominent physician at Brier Hospital in Berkeley, California. While...

Talking To Your Physician is a lighthearted attempt to deal with a potentially serious problem in medical care, the deteriorating relationship between patients and their physicians. As the healthcare system becomes more complicated, expensive, and stressful for both patients and their physicians, especially under Obamacare, we may need, more than ever, to rely on that relationship to guide us through the system. The book makes important observations and specific suggestion about how to improve patient care, reduce malpractice claims, insure patient rights, and allow physicians to practice in...

Talking With Your Physician is a lighthearted attempt to deal with a potentially serious problem in medical care, the deteriorating relationship between patients and their physicians. As the healthcare system becomes more complicated, expensive, and stressful for both patients and their physicians, especially under Obamacare, we may need, more than ever, to rely on that relationship to guide us through the system. The book makes important observations and specific suggestions about how to improve patient care, reduce malpractice claims, insure patient rights, and allow physicians to practice...