Doctor Bell

Doctor Bell is an optimist. An optimist determined to try anything to develop a miracle cure for tinnitus. An optimist with no medical training, morals, or Human Resources department.

Bell’s studies promise more than shivers and fear of bathtubs, but the soft caress of terror that comes from unhinged experiments with unexpected consequences. Join Bell and his sidekick Baldy through this book’s pages as they ignore science, safety, and setbacks while Doctor Bell attempts to find a cure and steal the title of best tinnitus researcher ever.

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Genre: Fiction, Horror, Satire, Medical Thriller

Published: 2016 (112 pages)

Available in paperback and ebook at libraries and bookstores including:

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Warning: This fiction book contains dark humour, violence, and coarse language. It is not appropriate for young or sensitive readers.

Table of contents

An overview of the content covered in the book.

1

Study 1: Desensitization

2

Study 57: Isolation

3

Study 421: Rotary

4

Study 2001: LB Protocol

5

Study 2560: Unilateral

6

Study 3218: Severation

7

Subject Lottery

8

Study 3219: Anastomosis

9

Study 4733: Regretfully Invited

10

Study 5907: Hair Cell Removal

11

Study 6452: Antidote

12

Study 8049: Organs

13

Marquis de Sade Home

14

Alexander Analytics

15

Robody Corp

What readers said

★★★

A vivid horror of incompetence with a Machiavellian lead. If you are looking for a creepy set of horror stories about medical disasters, this is for sure worth your time. Leaves one shuddering.

★★★★★

What a fast-paced riot of a read! If there’s one book you pick up this year, this is it!

★

I would happily give this book no stars at all, but I don’t think that that is an option. This book makes clinical trials seem like butcher shops where scientists do whatever they want completely without regard to evidence, common sense, and the well-being of the participants.

FROM THE AUTHOR

Inspiration

Every now and then, I come across research where the authors expose human subjects to dangerously loud sound levels, above 70 dB (LAeq24-hr). This violates the Helsinki Declaration on research ethics. Whether or not there is hearing recovery after the exposure ends, subjects likely suffer permanent progressive neurosensory auditory health damage.

I used to write emails and contact authorities or decision makers. Nobody seemed to care. Disclaimers are used. Subjects are asked to sign informed consent releases. Journals publish findings, regardless.

It got me thinking. Outside of ethical clinical trials, what is the worst thing a researcher could do to a subject in the name of a tinnitus cure?

What if they didn’t know anything more about ears than you could learn from Google?

What if their only interest was making billions in cure $ale$?

What if they were a psychopath who didn’t really care about any of their test subjects?

Study 421: Rotary is the result. I wrote it for a Halloween 50 word flash fiction contest:

“I can fix you,” muttered Bell.
She struggled against the restraints. Uselessly. He carefully selected a bit. Sizing it to her ear canal until satisfied. The drill buzz was louder than any tinnitus she had known.
“It should work…this time,” he murmured as the drill spiraled into her ear.

I couldn’t stop thinking about my “doctor” and what he might be up to next. This was not the first or the last of his tinnitus studies. Doctor Bell is now my favourite character. His eponymously titled book includes collected highlights of his endeavours.