Ayul Zamir is a pseudonym; however, it is as real as any other name. I had a near-death experience and I was metamorphosed- Oh yes! It is possible that there is a heaven and a hell; however, I know that when I die, this earth would be it. I did not see any wonderful lights or tunnels or angels or God or celestial virgins-golden images of a woman, which kind of bounced up and down with my each heartbeat, were hallucinations: my brain was synthesizing together my girl friend's face and the orange blob on the cardiac monitor in the ICU.

So I believe: listening to Yo-Yo Ma play Bach's 6 Unaccompanied Cello Suites, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan sing Nami danam chi manzil, bood shub jai ki man boodam, and Anoushka and Ravi Shankar effortlessly play Raaga Mishra Piloo on sitar are the closest divine experiences I might ever have. Most of my friends are likely to go to hell anyway-so I don't have a reason to go elsewhere! And I have practiced medicine long enough, and delved into the Bible and the Koran long enough-more than once each-and my interpretation- Well, it is unlikely to win me the popularity of a televangelist!

I was born in a mud house. I still remember the kitchen: its inside was jet black-from the soot that had deposited from the wood fires in the kilns, over decades perhaps. Even when I had grown up into a teen, I loved to lick the thick wooden pillar in the center of the kitchen. It had a strong bitter oily flavor, but was addicting like love-I wonder if it damaged my developing brain. Years later in Palo Alto, California, I discovered that Pete's espresso did come fairly close: being addictive and arousing all senses!

English is not my mother tongue, but I write in English because I love its sounds-especially when it is whispered by a beautiful woman-it is a wonderful language. I wish I could write perfectly-I am sure I never would, but I would still insist on editing my own work.

The last reason to write Intern Beth was the death of a friend; she was so full of life, it was shocking-we were the same age, and we did train together when we were interns ...

Intern Beth is autobiographical only to the extent that all first novels are autobiographical. But I do have three Leica cameras, and I have traveled and photographed a lot in Mainz and Darmstadt in Germany. Some would say that those are not the most picturesque places ... Well, perhaps-but then rarely do good photographers take shots of the picturesque! And I always thought that photography was more about seeing picturesque ...

For a whole month during my internship, I took care of a patient-John Doe: a Vietnam veteran in persistent vegetative state (PVS); we would put in a feeding tube and within two days he would pull it out, that was the only meaningful reflex or thought he had-and so his hands had to be restrained to prevent him from ... He was young, and the family insisted ... shoved the legal documents in my face, and my attending insisted on getting all the blood work ... So every Monday morning, armed with a 20 cc syringe, and an eighteen gauge needle, and a red and a purple and a blue top, I would draw blood form his groin-from the femoral vein-all other veins were used up, and he was well fed and overweight.

I thought he was dying; the family that he was not, and wanted to make absolutely sure that he did not die of hunger ... He had contractures and sores, and still he would manage to pull out that feeding tube! I wondered if John Doe would have liked to strangle the inventor of the feeding tube, and me, using that feeding tube.

And he had pressure sores, colonized with all kinds of bugs, and every now and then he would develop fever ...

I have practiced for years-highly successfully I might add-in Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and India, and it is only in the United States that I see these horrible pressure sores; very simple-everywhere else the patients die their natural deaths. And only in the United States I have come across doctors and politicians making diagnosis based on the video appearance of a patient, and feeling convinced enough to enact new laws ...

And what is next? Ed Duzssel is still alive, and so is Laura. And she has been found pregnant-

Writing is backbreaking work-but! It is true: success is ten percent inspiration, and the rest is perspiration ...

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