Dr. Michael Morse expected to graduate from his hospital residency and have an easy life treating overstressed executives in a NYC medical practice. That was the usual, customary, and reasonable path. At least, that was the plan.
He didn’t count on an extended Hematology-Oncology rotation, and he wasn’t trying to earn the wrath of the corrupt Chief of Oncology. The last thing he wanted was a favorite patient dying in his arms, or the failures of his past haunting his every waking hour. He didn’t expect to attempt suicide, or that anyone would rescue him when he did. And he sure as hell couldn’t imagine emerging from a coma with an ability to see cancer. So much for his plans.
Double Blind asks the questions, what would you do if you could see cancer in others? What’s a life worth and to whom? What would you do if you could cure cancer with a touch and at what cost? It explores themes of power, loss, guilt, and redemption. In many ways, it’s a believable origin story of a superhero. One that anyone dealing with cancer would want in their corner.
Praise
“The characters unfold into dear friends that you can’t help cheering for.”
Elisabete Doggett
“With his medical background, Dr. Michael J. Markoff creates a story that brings a twist to a normal hospital setting. His characters make the unbelievable believable!”
Mary Eberwein
The Birth of Double Blind
In the spring of 1985, I was in the home stretch of a four-year residency in oral & maxillofacial surgery and was assigned to a one-month rotation at Jackson Memorial Hospital, Miami. During the day, I scrubbed-in to observe surgery by one of the pioneers in jaw reconstruction; At night, I treated facial trauma patients in what at the time was the fourth busiest ER in the country. Even for a fit thirty-one-year-old, the days were long and taxing, but highly educational and worthwhile. My wife, our infant son, and I stayed in Lauderdale Lakes at my grandmother’s condo, and I borrowed her car to commute to Miami. One night, I was returning home at about 1 a.m. when I heard music on the radio that was so beautiful that I actually wept. I parked and dialed the radio station to ask what the song was. The DJ told me it was “Dreams of Children” by Shadowfax: (G. E. Stinson, Chuck Greenberg, Phil Maggini, Stuart Nevitt, Jamii Szmadzinski, David C. Lewis)
I bought the album (really, vinyl), and as I listened to the songs, I experienced a visual story line and developing characters which ultimately became Double Blind. Originally, it was a screenplay (See if you can tell what songs correspond to what scenes in the story), but on the advice of a professional and also my writer’s group I began an extended study of novel writing.
Though it is informed by my experiences as a resident in a Philadelphia teaching hospital, it is important to note that I had never encountered any dishonesty with respect to clinical trials. They are vital to the evolution of oncology. Historically, such things have happened at some time, in some institutions, but I’m not aware of any such occurrences at my alma mater. Personality clashes, and petty politics, yes; but never fraud. Initially I hesitated to submit the manuscript for fear that I might do for clinical trials what Peter Benchley and Steven Spielberg did for shore communities, and that’s exactly the opposite outcome that I want. Again, they are VITAL. But, like Jaws, it is a worst-case scenario imbued with imagination. What if…?
