About
The plot of the submitted novel is highly credible, as it relates my knowledge and experience in healthcare, government, and the intelligence agencies.
I served as a tenured Professor in Radiation Oncology and Symptom Research at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center [MDACC]. I also served as Vice-Chair of the MDACC Institutional Review Board [IRB] for two decades. Clinical trial experience ranges from conducting, auditing and analyzing the outcomes from Phase I through Phase IV studies.
Based on my role at MDACC, I was appointed to the Medicare Evidence Development & Coverage Advisory Committee [MEDCAC] and the National Cancer Institute Central IRB, which approves and performs annual reviews on all national cooperative group trials. With a security clearance, I also served as a consultant to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission [NRC] and was sent to Vienna to compose a tecdoc for the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA]. Selected to author multiple Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, American Society of Clinical Oncology [ASCO], National Comprehensive Cancer Network, National Quality Forum, American Society of Radiation Oncology [ASTRO], American College of Radiology [ACR], and the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, I understand the process of medicine. I have also served in significant leadership roles in ASCO and ASTRO, and hold fellowships in the American College of Physicians, the ACR, ASTRO and ASCO. Most recently, I served as Chief Medical Officer [CMO] for a firm conducting Health Economics and Outcomes Research [HEOR] for major pharmaceutical firms.
With almost 200 peer-reviewed articles, serving as an editor for multiple medical journals and authoring over 60 medical textbook chapters, I have significant experience in the realm of medical publishing. While I understand that medical and literary publishing are very different, publishers share identical parameters for commercial success.
Featured Work
Coincidences: A Novel about Deception and Trust
The novel presents the intersection of academic medicine, and the diplomatic and intelligence services. Unexpected to most, is the pervasive watch of intelligence services within medicine based on the expanding risk from bioweapons. Emphasizing that "there are no coincidences", deception is a routine tactic of spy craft, while trust remains a critical component for intelligence services, medicine, romance and life.
The primary characters in this novel revolve around a woman physician [Elsa Hermann] from the Texas Medical Center in Houston, her Brazilian patient [Franz Richter], an oil industry executive [Jim Hartfield], and a CIA covert operative [Kurt von Reibnitz / Weber] who was placed as the Chief Legal Officer for Richter. An internationally acclaimed physician, Elsa was the daughter of East German nuclear scientists who never revealed their CIA contacts [Dan and Mary Campbell] despite being tortured within a Stasi prison. In a daring extraction, Elsa's parents were relocated within the United States and contributed to the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Program. Later, Dan Campbell became a legendary Chief of Counterintelligence in the CIA.
The plot centers around Richter, a billionaire Brazilian industrialist of German heritage, who was cured of cancer by a biologically targeted treatment under a clinical trial. Understanding the potential of genetically-based biologic therapy, Richter built the world's largest genetics lab in São Paulo. The Texas Medical Center consummated an exclusive contract with Richter in which Dr. Hermann was the designated liaison for the Texas Medical Center. Elsa [understanding the science] and Kurt [gaining information from legal documents] uncovered nefarious activities in the São Paulo biobank, and with Chinese scientists in the Texas Medical Center research laboratories. Averting another pandemic and a modern Lebensborn Project, Kurt and Elsa escaped an assassination attempt and were extracted emergently to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
Romance was cultivated between Kurt and his honeypot target, Elsa. Even though Elsa was a physician, she remained sexually inexperienced given her focus on career advancement and concerns about social innuendo in Houston. While in Brazil, however, Elsa finally succumbs to the highly experienced Kurt and they become lovers. Despite denying personal feelings to his handlers throughout the mission, Kurt finally revealed his love for Elsa after the assassination attempt. Once debriefed at Langley, Elsa was forbidden by the CIA and Dan Campbell from ever having contact with Kurt again.
By "coincidence", Elsa meets a 5th generation Texan, Jim Hartfield, who frequently served as a CIA resource. Hartfield, a Naval academy graduate and Harvard Law, often shared his perspective with the CIA after meeting with heads of state as an oil company executive. A widower with two teenage children, Hartfield soon marries Elsa. With impeccable credentials and now settled in marriage, Hartfield becomes the U.S. Ambassador to Spain. In recognition for his success in the field, Kurt was highly promoted within the CIA, and it was assumed that he would now move on in his personal life. Knowing that Elsa's marriage to Hartfield was arranged, a vindictive Kurt resented Dan Campbell for rejecting him as a spouse for Elsa, and hated Jim for being the "Golden Boy" with money and position. Locations within the manuscript include São Paulo, Brazil; Houston, Texas; London, England; Langley Virginia; and Madrid, Spain.
