"I can't think of anything more fearsome than hospitals," bestselling author and eye surgeon Robin Cook told People interviewer Gail Jennes. "When people smell the alcohol and see the equipment, their pupils dilate. They go into a sweat. I need to evoke that atavistic fear of dying." Cook has done just that in a string of bestselling medical thrillers, pitting his protagonists against a heart-stopping series of egomaniacal researchers, profiteering HMOs, and greedy corporations. By showing the most fearsome results of modern medical technology, the author can inform readers about the important ethical and social issues facing doctors and patients today. "Practically nobody, including most doctors, pays attention to the problem or reads the editorials in the New England Journal of Medicine," Cook explained in a Washington Post interview with Sandy Rovner. "I decided early on that I would couch my stories as thrillers. It was an opportunity...