by Heather Frimmer

 My writing journey began in the spring of 2014. Feeling a need for creativity to balance my heavily left brained work as a radiologist, I signed up for an introductory class at a local writers’ workshop. From the first session, I loved everything about the class—the cozy room where we met every Wednesday night, the camaraderie with the other writers, the feeling of freedom as I jotted my thoughts on the page. As we wrote in response to prompts, my writing kept gravitating back to medical topics. Subconsciously, I was drawn to writing about my profession, probably because no other setting provides such intrinsic dramatic tension. Life can literally be at stake at any moment and emotions run the gamut, from immense joy to unimaginable sorrow. With the popularity of TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy and House, and novels such as Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese and Still Alice by Lisa Genova, I knew there was an appetite for these stories. Because the world of medicine can feel so bewildering and impenetrable, people love peeking behind the curtain to see the inner workings. On the last day of writing class, my instructor challenged me to try my hand at writing a novel. After a few moments of self-doubt, I decided to take a chance and go for it. 

In my debut novel, Bedside Manners, a mother-daughter story, Joyce Novak, the mother, receives a breast cancer diagnosis and must abandon her caregiver role and become the patient. Her daughter, Marnie, just completed medical school and is looking forward to her surgical internship and upcoming wedding. But when one of her patients dies, she learns to strike a balance between doctor and daughter. 

Joyce’s story was inspired by the thousands of breast cancer patients I’ve had the honor of caring for. I used my observations to make Joyce’s journey as authentic and emotionally resonant as possible. Many of Marnie’s experiences during medical training are based on things either I or my friends encountered on the wards. This novel is a prime example of writing what you know. Because the topics and characters were inspired by my professional and personal experiences, no research was required. This comfort level allowed me to focus on figuring out how to write a novel. The learning curve was certainly steep, but I climbed the hill one step at a time and finally made it to the top. Bedside Manners was published in 2018.

In my second novel, Better to Trust, Grant Kaplan, a neurosurgeon hiding an addiction to prescription pills, decides to operate on his sister-in-law’s brain. As Alison fights for her life, she’s also harboring her own secret—an extramarital affair with a woman. Her close call with mortality spurs her to take a closer look at her marriage, explore her newfound sexuality and figure out what she wants for her future.

During medical school, I knew early on that surgery wasn’t a good fit for my personality, so I spent as little time in the operating room as possible. I preferred fields that prioritized thinking over doing. Neurology and psychiatry were high on the list, but radiology ultimately won the day. Since the topics in my second book are not directly related to my day job, I did a lot of reading on stroke, aphasia, neurosurgery and addiction. Stepping out of my comfort zone to write about things I haven’t experienced was exhilarating and scary at the same time. I’m still learning to channel that fear into my writing. To ensure I did justice to the topics in the book, I gathered a fantastic group of beta readers including neurologists, neurosurgeons, addiction specialists, and speech pathologists. I asked them to be honest about any parts that didn’t ring true and suggest ways to revise accordingly. 

In writing about the world of medicine, I aspire to highlight the inherent challenges, complexities and rewards of spending one’s life trying to heal people. My physician characters are complicated and fundamentally human. While they may be brilliant, skilled and well-trained, they are also flawed and fallible. I hope my stories compel readers to consider the difficulties and pressures of a medical career and to explore how an unexpected medical event can drastically change the course of a life, for bad or for good. I hope reading my books will stimulate lively discussion, as there is plenty of material for book clubs to explore. But most importantly, I hope readers to get lost in a compelling, page-turning story and close the book with a sense of satisfaction. 

Heather Frimmer is a radiologist specializing in breast and emergency room imaging. Her first novel, Bedside Manners, was published in 2018 and has received several awards including the National Indie Excellence, Reader’s Favorite and Independent Press awards. She completed her medical training at Weill-Cornell Medical College, New York Presbyterian-Cornell and Yale New Haven Hospital. She lives in suburban Connecticut with her husband, a trained actor and middle school teacher and their two children. Better to Trust is her second novel. Learn more at heatherfrimmer.com.