A movie version of Coma, released in 1978, was scripted and directed by Dr.

Michael Crichton who, like Robin Cook, has been lured from the comparatively meager pay of practicing medicine to the millions that can be made from writing about it. Movie critics suggest that the involvement of too many doctors has ruined the story; physicians are too accustomed to the specter of cadavers and autopsies to understand their shock effect on laymen. Genevieve Bujold plays Susan Wheeler, who in the movie is a doctor instead of a medical student. Her investigation begins with the death of her best friend instead of a stranger.

And while the movie mirrors the novel in exploiting the layman's fear of hospitals and medical procedures, it has lost the suspense which made the book so much more successful.