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Sunday Morning News

Author Discusses Latest Medical Suspense Novel

Aired April 30, 2000 - 8:30 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The latest novel by Dr. Michael Palmer makes its debut on the "New York Times" best seller list this week at number 14. "The Patient" is the ninth medical suspense novel written by the best-selling author who practiced internal and emergency medicine full-time for 20 years. Dr. Palmer is now associate director of the Massachusetts Medical Society's Physician Health Program and he joins us this morning from Boston.

Good morning, Dr. Palmer.

DR. MICHAEL PALMER, AUTHOR, "THE PATIENT": Good morning. It's nice to be here.

PHILLIPS: Glad to have you. With regard to the book, let's begin with ARTIE. Explain ARTIE for us.

PALMER: Well, ARTIE is an acronym for assisted robotic tissue incision and extraction. It's a, the book is a neurosurgical thriller and ARTIE is a tiny robot that can be inserted either through the skull or actually in a patient up through the nose to be able to reach tumors that might be inoperable trying to go directly through brain tissue. And he's fictionalized, but not by that much.

PHILLIPS: When you say not by that much, what do you mean?

PALMER: Well, I did a great deal of reading about robotics before settling on using ARTIE in this novel and discovered that the field of robotics and medicine, especially in neurosurgery, is very far advanced and, in fact, a week before "The Patient" came out in the "New York Times" in the science section there was a headline article about cardiac bypass surgery being done by a small robot almost exactly like ARTIE. And it was done through three incisions, one for light, one for ARTIE and one to do whatever other procedures needed to be done inside the chest in terms of a camera and other assistance.

And it was remarkable how close it was to the little robot that I made up when I was getting ready to do this novel.

PHILLIPS: Do you think this is the wave of the future, no longer having a human being but rather a robot operating on us?

PALMER: Some of the technology is already in use. For instance, especially in the brain where the structures are pretty well consistent from patient to patient and now we can use robotic arms, even at a long distance, to do like curing epilepsy, by cauterizing a certain area of the brain. So the answer is yes, I think that robotic surgery, just as fiber optics has revolutionized surgery, I think robotics is going to change everything in the near future.

PHILLIPS: Well, I think...

PALMER: And it makes for an exciting novel for me, too.

PHILLIPS: Dr. Palmer, you also address ethics on the operating table in your book. Why do you do this? Do you see this as a big problem from your experience?

PALMER: Well, I'm always looking for, when I write a novel, for conflict, and this particular novel is about the most mysterious and feared terrorist in the world who has a brain tumor and makes his way kind of under disguise into a hospital and now the surgeon knows who he is and is facing a serious problem. If she operates on him and cures him, he'll kill again. If she doesn't operate on him or does a poor job for whatever reason, she may actually be the next one to die and, in fact, she's also violating her ethics as far as treating patients, and that's the issue that I deal with in the book a lot.

PHILLIPS: A lot of issues that you tackle, including stress on doctors, too.

PALMER: Well, I'm used to dealing with stress on doctors. That's part of my medical job now. I was an E.R. doctor, an internist for 20 years and now I'm the associate director of our program in Massachusetts that helps sick doctors -- mental illness, physical illness and substance abuse. Stress is right there at the top of the list.

PHILLIPS: Well, not only in real life, you're addressing them in your books, both very good causes. Once again, the name of the book, "The Patient." Dr. Michael Palmer, thanks so much for joining us this morning.

PALMER: It's a pleasure. Thank you.

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