The Crime Cafe

This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Michael J. Young, MD.

Check out our discussion about his medical thrillers and enter his book giveaway here!

You can download a PDF of the transcript here.

Debbi: Hi everyone. Today my guest is a doctor who spent 30 years as a surgeon while living and practicing medicine in Chicago. He’s the author of a memoir/assessment of the current medical system – oh my – titled The Illness of Medicine: Experiences of Clinical Practice. He’s also authored a trilogy of medical thrillers, and they all sound absolutely terrifying. I say that in the nicest possible way. I mean it in the best possible way. Anyway, he is also on the faculty of the Departments of Urology and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has invented and patented various medical devices, too. Amazing guy! It’s my pleasure to introduce Dr. Michael J. Young, medical thriller writer and M.D. Hi, Michael. How are you doing today?

Michael: I’m wonderful, thank you.

Debbi: Great. Fantastic. Wow. My first question to you, of course, is how are we going to fix our horrible healthcare system?

Michael: Oh, we could spend hours and days.

Debbi: Hours, yes. I was going to say, you probably ask the same question all the time in your books.

Michael: Every morning.

Debbi: Boy, I can tell you, I’ve had enough experience with it to know. So I was reading your first few chapters in Net of Deception and my gosh, what egregious examples of what not to do on the internet.

Michael: Yes, it is. Well, actually, Net of Deception evolved out of my dissatisfaction and distrust and frustration, if you will, with the online pharmaceutical access that people have. As easy as it is, and in many ways, the advantages of having it are great, but the disadvantage is that patients don’t have the opportunity to truly have informed consent about potentially very dangerous drugs. And in this particular scenario, nefarious activity occurred within the company that was selling these drugs. So it was really predicated on my own frustration with that evolution of how drugs are obtained today.

Debbi: Yes. And not to mention medical information in general on the internet.

Michael: Yes. Again, it’s a double-edged sword. I encourage people to have information. The problem with the internet is that you don’t always know the reliability or the source of that information. And although it may say it’s from so-and-so, it may not be. And so a consumer of this data, of this knowledge, of this vocabulary has to be extraordinarily mindful and diligent in assuring that they’re obtaining that information from a reliable source.

I encourage people to have information. The problem with the internet is that you don’t always know the reliability or the source of that information.

Debbi: Yes, absolutely. And so often things will depend on other factors that aren’t being addressed in the information that you have, so that you don’t have the whole picture.

Michael: No, you don’t, and that carries over too much of the direct consumer advertising of drugs. I mean, there’s only two countries in the world that allow it – the United States and New Zealand. That’s it. And so when you hear or watch these ads on TV, everything looks wonderful but you’re only getting a snippet because there’s only so much time with which that information can be given to you and you can’t decipher it. The legal information that’s given is boilerplate. Everybody has the same side effects.

Debbi: It’s read very fast.

Michael: Very fast, but also at the end, you may die. You may this, you may that. Well, of course. And so how is a consumer supposed to make that decision? But unfortunately for us as physicians, patients come to the office with a preconceived solution to the problem without really understanding the problem. But they’ve had this wonderful advertisement telling them all the benefits. And so if you don’t fulfill that requisite, they become very frustrated and they will shop till they find someone who will prescribe that particular medication or pill without really having an understanding of the disease or the alternatives. So it’s a problem.

Debbi: Yes. There’s a lot of reasons to be cautious while looking for information on the internet for those reasons.

Michael: Absolutely.

Debbi: Your trilogy. What inspired you to write a trilogy, and did you plan from the start to make it a trilogy?

Michael: That’s a very insightful question, and the answer is no, I did not. I guess it all begins with my frustration with the healthcare environment and our healthcare delivery system, which prompted me to write my first book. After I wrote that, I felt that I could convey the same information, discussing the entitlement and the greed and all of those things I was very dissatisfied with in the healthcare industry. If I fictionalized it, I could then reach a different group of readers who aren’t interested in reading a dialogue about healthcare. That’s about as dry as a desert to some people. They may be interested, but they don’t want to delve through that. Either it’s difficult emotionally, or they just don’t have the tolerance. They want to be entertained.

I guess it all begins with my frustration with the healthcare environment and our healthcare delivery system, which prompted me to write my first book.

So I decided a way to entertain people but still convey the information of healthcare vulnerabilities was to fictionalize it. These books are not simple books. They are not Colonel Custard in the library with the lead pipe These are books that I have written in an effort to educate, perhaps subtly, but nonetheless give information. They are based on my personal experiences. I don’t know if you want me to delve into that, how that evolved, but I’m happy to.

These are books that I have written in an effort to educate, perhaps subtly, but nonetheless give information. They are based on my personal experiences.

Debbi: I think we can talk for a little bit about that, please.

Michael: Well, for instance, the first of the trilogy was Consequence of Murder: Algor Mortis is the title. And when you see algor mortis, what does that mean? Well, algor mortis is one of the initial phases of what occurs to a body after it dies. We have three of them: the livor mortis, which is translated as the color of death, where a body dies and because there’s no longer blood being pumped, the blood will pool to the back if a person is lying upright, face up. So if you turn the body over, the back will be crimson because the blood has pooled. Pardon me?

Debbi: Lividity. Is that what it is?

Michael: Well, no. It has to do with the fact that because gravity will take over and pull the blood down, and there’s nothing pumping or moving the blood, it will go to the most dependent portion of the body. So that’s why the body will be blanched on top and more crimson on the back. The third phase is rigor mortis, which I’m sure we’ve all heard of, which is translated from Latin as the stiffness of death. But in between them is one called algor mortis, which is translated as the coolness of death. And what that relates to, Debbi, is the fact that a human body will lower its temperature by one and a half degrees Fahrenheit per hour to ambient temperature. So when you’re watching television and the coroner says, the body’s been dead 12 hours, well, how do we know that? We know that because of the body temperature. So algor mortis relates to that temperature change.

And in writing this first book of the trilogy, it had to do with the fact that I once had a patient that I was operating on, that I came into a lot of bleeding in the kidney as I was working on a kidney stone with a laser. That stone eventually got stuck in blood, which clotted, which held it in place and made it easier to treat. I decided I needed a synthetic clot so I created one in the lab in my job as an innovator at the University of Illinois, and when I submitted it for patenting, the department and the university felt, well, this will be very expensive, so let’s put it on the shelf. To which I said, no, no, let me use this. I can kill somebody with this and I did so in a book.

And just to pull it together, I decided, well, how can we use this? Well, if I inject it in a vein, and this material starts as a liquid at cool temperature, and it solidifies at body temperature, I decided if I inject it in someone’s vein, it will then cause a clot, which will lead to a pulmonary embolism. Patient dies. They cool, and of course, when they cool the material liquefies again, so you can’t find it. So the plot started with my experiences with this material, and I developed a character, Jay Yamp, which I then put into the other novels. So they all feed into experiences in my life as a surgeon. but also they add a twist to show the vulnerability of patients in a hospital environment or medical environment.

Debbi: Oh, yes. Wow! That’s a mind blower there. I like that.

Michael: So all the books, they’re not simple stories. I mean, they’re interesting, but they’re not, again, just a police agent or FBI agent seeking for the killer. These have a medical association, something that has to do with physiology or anatomy, and I’m very mindful to explain all of this, but I think people like to hear that.

Debbi: That’s very cool. That’s great. I mean, I can appreciate, as a person who used to practice law, why you would want to take your experiences and put them in a fictionalized context, because I did it with my own books,

Michael: Right. And there is nothing better than reality to create fiction around that.

Debbi: Exactly.

Michael: Some of the things that happened to us, we could not make up.

Debbi: Precisely. Yeah. Sometimes you have to kind of think, okay, will people believe this?

Michael: Yeah, they do and they will.

Debbi: They do, yeah.

Michael: So that was CONSEQUENCE OF MURDER about that which was created in a lab used for a nefarious reason. NET OF DECEPTION had to do with online pharmaceutical vulnerability we have. And then the last of that group To Cure or Kill had to do with the development of a new anti-cancer vaccine and the pharmaceutical espionage around that. So again, all of these I would be hard pressed to say, is this fact or fiction? I think they all could occur.

Debbi: Right. Yeah. Scary stuff. Do you plan to extend the trilogy?

Michael: No, the trilogy is completed. I just finished a book and just published a book on a completely different venue. It had to do with some of the psychology of the game of golf, and how it relates to a metaphor to life. I co-authored that with a psychiatrist. But my next book, I’m going back to the murder mystery thrillers, so that will be book 6, and I’ll be starting writing on that probably in the fall in about six weeks, and that will return to our vulnerabilities and the risks involved in the healthcare environment, but it won’t be part of the trilogy. It will be freestanding.

I just finished a book and just published a book on a completely different venue. It had to do with some of the psychology of the game of golf, and how it relates to a metaphor to life.

Debbi: All right. With a different character, set of characters.

Michael: Different characters. Those three books have the same main character. This will be a different venue, different problem, and again, a contemporary issue that I think those who like this venue will be very intrigued with. It has to do with the DNA companies.

Debbi: Oh, wow. That’s a hot topic.

Michael: Yes.

Debbi: All of these are. What kind of writing schedule do you keep?

Michael: I don’t. I am not one who can sit down at 5 in the morning, 6 in the morning, 8 at night, whatever, and say, today I’m going to write. If it’s not there, it’s not there. I have an idea what I want to write, and when I have thought about it subconsciously enough, maybe that’s a day, maybe it’s a week, I don’t know, then I start. And once the ball gets going, I will come back to it frequently, but I will do it more based on my schedule rather than on a particular … I’m rigid at eight o’clock, I’m going to sit down and write. I can’t do that. That’s not how I think. When it’s flowing, it’s flowing and when it’s not, it’s not.

Debbi: I get it. Really. What authors have most inspired your own writing?

Michael: I would say Robin Cook, Michael Crichton and perhaps the reason I mention them is because … well, Crichton is deceased, but they’re both MDs. Robin Cook’s first book, THE YEAR OF THE INTERN, was a book about healthcare, very similar to my experiences in writing ILLNESS OF MEDICINE, and then he wrote a thriller COMA which was later made into a film with Michael Douglas, I believe was in it. My first novel was CONSEQUENCE OF MURDER.

Michael Crichton, also an MD, wrote his first book, ANDROMEDA STRAIN. That’s a classic to me, and so I think, again, using their medical background, they were able to fabricate stories that people are interested in, particularly thrillers that aren’t predicated on just someone with a gun shooting somebody and then investigating it. They are much more complicated stories than that. And so that is what I’ve tried to, I see myself in that mold.

Debbi: Very good. What are your techniques for informing people through your fiction without getting too technical?

Michael: Again, a very good question. I practiced medicine for 30 years as a surgeon. I had to inform people of very technical problems, but put it in words and phrases and terminology that they could grasp and understand. So I think I’ve had a breadth of experience in making that translation. And so in the books, of course, I talk about the lasers and I talk about bleeding management. In many ways, the complicated problems that I filter down and take my time in making an explanation that I feel anyone with a moderate amount of interest would understand. If you look at Tom Clancy’s books, his stories, he would spend pages talking about the details of the bolt connected to the screw, connected to the door in infinite detail. I am not that detailed because I think in some ways – not to dismiss his writing, which is brilliant – but in some ways, you almost lose your focus. So I have to keep the reader’s focus, but give them information to help them with the next step in the story.

In many ways, the complicated problems that I filter down and take my time in making an explanation that I feel anyone with a moderate amount of interest would understand.

Debbi: Exactly. Kind of giving them context for understanding the whole thing.

Michael: It’s context, but it also can be used as a teaser, because you bring up a situation and then they have to wonder where does this come into play.

Debbi: Yeah. Yeah.

Michael: Can’t lay it all out in front of the reader. They would get bored.

Debbi: That would get boring, yes. This isn’t a textbook, it’s fiction.

Michael: It’s fiction, and part of fiction that makes it interesting is that the reader is trying to figure things out as they’re going through, without being told what is going to happen.

Debbi: Yes. Yes, indeed. That’s very good. What do you find is the best way to establish a readership? How have you reached out to readers?

Michael: It’s hard. It’s difficult. I’m finding that people are more engaged in watching with streaming today than they are the effort to sit down and read. I think a lot of that evolved from the Covid issue, where people were not about milling with people. They were by themselves, and what do you do? You want entertainment, so you watch, less read. But I try to stimulate the reading by trying to get the word out on the various social media, shows such as this, radio, everything I can to get the word out. And I do think it does become a bit of a domino [effect], that once you get that ball going, more will follow.

Debbi: Yes. Yes. I agree. I mean, especially if you can reach the people who are really, really interested in your particular subject, they will want to talk about your book online and tell people about it.

Michael: Agreed. I think everyone has an issue or has an experience in the healthcare environment. We’ve all been patients. We’ve all had complaints or problems or frightening events that either did or could have happened to ourselves or someone we know. And so, just that vulnerability, it isn’t something that happens to somebody else. You know, I can read a thriller written about a spy. That’s not my life. But I could have consequences to my just being in my everyday world and then get sucked into the vortex of bad things that can happen as I’m going through surgery or in the hospital environment, drugs, et cetera. So these are real things that I think all of us are aware could happen to me.

I think everyone has an issue or has an experience in the healthcare environment. We’ve all been patients. We’ve all had complaints or problems or frightening events that either did or could have happened to ourselves or someone we know

Debbi: Yes.

Michael: And that’s what makes it real for them, even though it’s fictionalized.

Debbi: It does. It makes it very concrete and gripping in that way because you know, oh, this could be me.

Michael: Could be me.

Debbi: Yeah, but for the grace of God.

Michael: Right, right.

Debbi: What advice would you give to anyone interested in having a writing career?

Michael: They have to be dedicated. It is a very difficult thing to do. It takes an enormous amount of time and energy. It’s also something that is very … It’s very solitary in its performance. You have to be committed. I’ve met many people who say, oh, I’m going to write a book. Well, go at it. Be prepared to spend a lot of time by yourself. Be prepared that it is arduous. It is difficult. It’s not going to happen overnight. All my books take, for me, about a year and a half to write. They don’t come out easily. And so you have to realize it’s a marathon. It’s not a sprint, and you can’t force it.

I’ve met many people who say, oh, I’m going to write a book. Well, go at it. Be prepared to spend a lot of time by yourself. Be prepared that it is arduous. It is difficult. It’s not going to happen overnight.

Debbi: So true.

Michael: You just can’t force it. I teach at the University of Illinois in designing and developing surgical instruments, and I think we spend more time in instructing students on problem identification than we do on solutions. If you understand the problem, oftentimes the solution will be much more easily obtainable. I think if you’re going to write a book, you have to think, think, think, think about what you’re writing, why you’re writing, who your audience is, where you want to go before you just start getting in and writing. Now, that doesn’t imply that you have to spend forever outlining things. I don’t. I don’t outline at all, but I think about it a great deal before I even begin writing.

Debbi: Yes. That’s a good way to approach it. Even if you don’t outline, just think about how you would like the story to go.

Michael: You have to. The problem identification, understanding and ideating around the problem becomes more critical than the solution. Takes time. And be patient with yourself rather than just delving in and starting to write in different directions.

Debbi: Good advice. Good advice. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we finish up?

Michael: No, I think these are fun books. They are interesting books. They are thought provoking books. I think as much as there is – yes, there is murder, there is intrigue, there is mystery in all of them – at the end of the day, I wanted readers to connect with them and think about, again, our health world, our healthcare environment, and the vulnerabilities that we have in it, and hopefully shed some light on the problems I think that are in that environment. So there is an underlying purpose to the books other than just to entertain.

Debbi: I think that’s wonderful. That’s fantastic. And I want to thank you so much for being with us today, Michael. I really appreciate your time.

Michael: Thank you so much.

Debbi: It’s my pleasure. So on that note, I will just say, check out Michael J. Young, M.D’s. thrillers. They sound fantastic. And you can enter his giveaway. I will put a link in the notes where you can find the giveaway link. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review or becoming a supporter on Patreon. I post all sorts of bonus content there for Patreon supporters. In any case, thank you so much for tuning in to watch or listen, depending on what platform you’re on. Our next guest will be Michele Scott. Oh, the temptation to make an Office joke here, Okay. I won’t go there. I will not say anything about Michael Scott. Oh, I just did. Oh, sorry. Okay. Next time. Michele Scott, not Michael. Steve Carell’s not going to be on. And in the meantime, take care and happy reading.

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