Medical consulting for novelists & fiction writers

Make the medicine believable. Keep the story yours.

Writing a hospital scene and not sure it would really happen that way? I help fiction writers get the medicine right — without letting accuracy take over the story.

Start a conversation → See how I can help

A stethoscope resting on an open book beside a fountain pen and manuscript pages — Where the clinic meets the page.

Not sure whether your character’s diagnosis, treatment, or recovery timeline holds up? Wondering what would actually happen after someone arrives in an emergency department — or who would be in the room when an important conversation takes place?

I’m a practicing family physician with experience across hospital medicine, emergency care, outpatient medicine, rural and remote healthcare, and end-of-life care — and I hold master’s degrees in Public Health and Medical Anthropology, for added perspective on healthcare systems, culture, ethics, population health, and the human experience of illness.

You don’t need to become a medical expert to write a convincing medical scene. You just need someone you can ask.

— How I Can Help

Three ways to work together, from a single question to a whole manuscript.

A writer's desk with a laptop, an open notebook, and a warm brass lamp

Consult

Author Consultation

Have medical questions but don’t need a manuscript review? Talk it through — ideal during plotting or drafting.

What diagnosis could plausibly create the situation my plot needs?
What happens when my character reaches the hospital — and who cares for them?
Could they survive this, and how fast could they recover?
Would a physician really say or do this?

Finding a plausible way to tell the story you already want to tell.

A quiet emergency department corridor at night with an empty gurney

Review

Medical Scene Review

Already drafted the scenes? Send chapters and I’ll flag what rings false — and how to fix it without losing the moment.

Plausibility — diagnoses, treatments, tests, timelines
Hospital reality — who does what, and when
Dialogue & behavior that sounds like real clinicians
Continuity across the whole story

Not “that wouldn’t happen” — but what could, that does the same work.

A stack of antique leather-bound books beside a vintage anatomical heart illustration

Manuscript

Full-Manuscript Review

A comprehensive read for a finished draft — through the lens of both a physician and a storyteller.

Accuracy, clinical workflow, and emergency care
Behavior, dialogue, and terminology
Timelines, end-of-life care, and ethics
Systems, access, and public-health context

Feedback sorted by what matters — and where reality is flexible.

— More than fact-checking

Medicine in fiction isn’t only about getting the diagnosis right.

Illness changes relationships. Hospitals have their own culture and hierarchy. Doctors and nurses communicate in particular ways; families misunderstand each other; healthcare systems create constraints. Geography, culture, money, history, and community all shape what care is available and how people experience it.

My training in clinical medicine, public health, and medical anthropology lets me help you think beyond the mechanics of diagnosis and treatment.

Medical anthropology is most useful when the important question isn’t “What would the doctor do?” but “What does illness mean to the people living through it?”

Especially useful for stories involving

Rural & remote healthcare
Healthcare disparities & access
Cross-cultural medical encounters
Public-health issues
Serious illness & end-of-life care
Medical ethics
Healthcare institutions & systems
Physician identity, culture & burnout
Family experiences of illness
Communities in a health crisis

A television medical-drama set: a cinema camera on a dolly facing a lit hospital-room set — From the page to the screen — the same medicine has to hold up under the lights.

Dr. Mackenzie Rapp, family physician, in a white coat in a hospital corridor — Dr. Mackenzie Rapp, DO · MPH · MA

— About

A physician who reads like a writer.

I’m a board-certified family physician with broad clinical experience spanning hospital medicine, emergency care, outpatient medicine, and rural and remote healthcare. My work has taken me from everyday primary care to medical emergencies, hospitalization, serious illness, and end-of-life conversations.

My academic background shaped a lasting interest in the larger forces around medicine — healthcare systems, culture, ethics, public health, and how patients and families make sense of illness. It’s that double vision, clinical and human, that I bring to a manuscript.

DODoctor of Osteopathic Medicine — board-certified family physician
MPHMaster of Public Health — systems, ethics, and population health
MAMedical Anthropology — culture and the lived experience of illness

— Start a conversation

Let’s make the medicine support your story — instead of distracting from it.

Tell me where you are in your process — plotting, drafting, or nearly done — and what you’re trying to pull off. We’ll find a plausible way to get there.