Author, Doctor Michael Palmer Dies at Age 71

Michael Stephen Palmer, M.D., American physician and author, has died at the age of 71. On October 29, 2013, he unexpectedly suffered a heart attack and stroke, dying the next day in New York City. In addition to his three sons Matthew, Daniel, and Luke, Dr. Palmer's survivors include four grandchildren and his two sisters, Donna and Susan.

His novels are often referred to as medical thrillers. Some of his novels have made the New York Times Best Seller List and have been translated into 35 languages. One, Extreme Measures (1991), was adopted into a 1996 film of the same name starring Hugh Grant and Gene Hackman.

Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, Palmer graduated from Wesleyan University with a pre-med major, and with "sort of a Russian minor". He then went to Case Western Reserve University for medical school. Palmer trained in internal medicine[2] at Boston City Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Palmer claimed he never wanted to be a writer. He did not think he had much "flair" for it, even though he read in his spare time. In 1978, he read Dr. Robin Cook's medical thriller Coma (1977). Palmer thought if Cook, also a Wesleyan graduate, could write a novel, then he could too.

Before he began work on his first published novel, The Sisterhood, about euthanasia, Palmer was practicing treatment of drug addiction.

Side Effects (1985), his second published work, was about the testing of unapproved drugs on a patient in Nazi Germany, but his most famous novel proved to be Extreme Measures (1991), in which a promising young doctor is threatened by a hospital elite after discovering the body's criminal acts. A selection of his other books include: Natural Causes (1994), about an holistic doctor who prescribes medicine that actually kills patients; Miracle Cure (1998), about a drug for heart disease that actually is very dangerous because of its side effects; and Extreme Measures (1991), on which the eponymous 1996 thriller film starring Hugh Grant, Gene Hackman, and Sarah Jessica Parker is based.

His novels include:

1. The Sisterhood (book) (1982), ISBN 0-553-27570-4
2. Side Effects (1985), ISBN 0-553-27618-2
3. Flashback (book) (1988), ISBN 0-553-27329-9
4. Extreme Measures (book) (1991), ISBN 0-553-29577-2
5. Natural Causes (book) (1994), ISBN 0-553-56876-0
6. Silent Treatment (book) (1995), ISBN 0-553-57221-0
7. Critical Judgment (book) (1996), ISBN 0-553-57408-6
8. Miracle Cure (book) (1998), ISBN 0-553-57662-3
9. The Patient (book) (2000), ISBN 0-553-58038-8
10. Fatal (book) (2002), ISBN 0-553-58361-1
11. The Society (book) (2004), ISBN 0-553-58362-X
12. The Fifth Vial (book) (2007), ISBN 0-553-58362-X
13. The First Patient (book) (2008), ISBN 0-312-34353-1
14. The Second Opinion (book) (2009), ISBN 978-0-312-34355-2
15. The Last Surgeon (book) (2010), ISBN 978-0-312-58749-9
16. A Heartbeat Away (book) (2011), ISBN 978-0-312-58752-9
17. Oath of Office (book) (2012), ISBN 978-0-312-58753-6
18. Political Suicide (2013), ISBN 9780312587550

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