Menkes is a pediatric neurologist at UCLA, famous for his discovery of Maple Syrup Urine Disease (you can guess the main sign), also known as Menkes' Disease or Menkes' Syndrome.
I was in his clinic one afternoon during my peds rotation at UCLA Med School, where some kid whose disease was undiagnosable was brought in. Menkes walked into the room with all of us med students, interns, and residents behind him, looked at the kid, asked the mother a few questions, wiggled the kid's finger and wrists, said, "this is a case of so-and-so," and walked out of the room.
We all went and looked up the disease, and damned if the kid didn't fit the picture perfectly. Something like 17 cases reported in the world literature up to that time. The classic absent minded-professor, Menkes seemed a little baffled and bewildered, with these thick glasses and a scraggly beard, but that's a big-time brain in there.
His novel's really not bad, in fact, it's quite good for a first attempt. Published in 1999 by Demos Medical Publishing instead of some major house, probably because it shows stretches of poor writing that could've easily been cleaned up by a decent editor, the book rings true in terms of how clinical research and big Pharma interact, especially when their needs conflict and billions of dollars are at stake.
Having done clinical research sponsored by big Pharma, I can report this is a very honest account of what happens when results and dollars crash head-on
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