Interview with Michael J. Young – S. 10, Ep. 4

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.