T.D. Severin
Deadly Vision
A revolutionary medical breakthrough. A technology, so advanced, people will kill to prevent its discovery.
The Writer’s Dossier 6/9/2025 – The T.D. Severin interview
DOSSIER: Before you were an internationally renowned professor, physician, surgeon, and award-winning nonfiction author, and before Newsweek magazine named you one of the nation’s best ophthalmologists … you were a radio disk jockey. Now you write thriller novels, so, The Dossier just wants to know, where did you go wrong in your career choices? Were you bored or experimental?
SEVERIN: Ha, we could probably talk about where I went wrong for hours!! To your question, not bored, and really not very experimental. Just excitable and passionate about the things I love, like writing and music, as well as my medical career — and foolish enough to believe that I could do all of them. I’m very much two-brained, left and right. Analytic and scientific, yet at the same time I need to be creating and pursuing my passions. Basically, I never ask myself if I’ll fail at whatever I pursue, I just create a plan of action and go for it, focusing on the process, not the result. I’m blessed with an amazingly patient, supportive wife and (when I was younger) an unlimited supply of energy. Energy is fading a bit now that I’m older, but not the passion.
Learning from the craft masters
DOSSIER: In your novel, DEADLY VISION, you blend virtual reality and medicine into a thriller that even Dossier standout Robert Dugoni says blew him away from its opening page. How did you shift gears from being a successful surgeon to receiving such high praise for a thriller novel?
SEVERIN: Robert was one of my most important and impactful teachers. I met him at a writing conference he gave in Chicago and learned invaluable lessons. And that was pretty much my path. I’ve always been a writer, short stories, poetry and journalism in College and continued that through Medical School and Residency. Writing was a great release and change of pace from the rigors and banality of medical memorization. The original idea for my novel came to me during my Fellowship Training in Advanced Surgical Techniques for Glaucoma and I whipped out the first draft in about 4 months. It was only after I wrote the book that I realized I should probably learn how to write a book! Ha! Like I said, I plunge in. So I took several UC Berkeley Extension Courses on novel writing with authors like James Frey, Mimi Albert and Kathleen Doughtery, then started attending medical conferences across the country, including the now sadly-missed SEAK Medical Fiction Writing Conference in Cape Cod, which was run by Tess Gerritsen and Michael Palmer. I was a sponge, learning, analyzing, dissecting, trying to understand the craft of writing. Trust me, I’m still learning, which is half the fun. I love the “craft” of writing the novel. It’s endlessly immersive.
Early bird gets the book
DOSSIER: Where and when do you like to write? You have places around San Francisco and Florida, but what kind of atmosphere works best for you?
SEVERIN: In truth, I’m not picky as to location, meaning city vs beach vibe vs mountains, or such. I do require quiet. I don’t write in public places, I like my office. I can edit anywhere, but to write I need to be immersed. No music, no distractions. As for time, I’m an early morning kinda guy. I’m not a night owl. I tend to get up around 4am and write for a couple hours before I go to work (still have the day job as an Ophthalmologist). Even on weekends, I’ll get up at 4am and write or do work in my office until around 9-10am. After lunch I try to do a couple more hours of productive work, but that’s better editing time for me than writing time (or answering emails, etc.). By 5 pm I’m done. Workout and relax with my wife and dogs until bedtime at around 8:30.
Fiction vs non-fiction
DOSSIER: You also write a wildly successful nonfiction book about wellness that fuses eastern and western medicines. Is there something about writing thrillers that you find more fun, or do you prefer dispensing knowledge based in reality instead?
SEVERIN: The wellness book, TriEnergetics, was a special project I did with my father, who is also a physician. He was a flight surgeon in the Air Force and studied the body/mind fitness of the early Gemini Astronauts. While I was doing my Residency, I simultaneously studied for 3 years to be a Taoist Priest, so we each had a rather unique perspective on our approach to health and wellness, so writing that book was very rewarding to be doing it with him. But on my own, I much prefer writing the thrillers. I like the creative aspects and letting my imagination loose and seeing where it ends up. I have so many stories and ideas inside of me. Given a choice of one or the other, I’d prefer to write fiction.
The Last Word
DOSSIER: Is there anything else you’d like to reveal in your Dossier today? (We like headline-making breaking news and it gives our graphics department something to do other than play video games all day.)
SEVERIN: No sequel for this one. Our hero’s story has been told, there’s really no where else to take him or more to explore. But, I did create this rather detailed, vast world centered around the San Francisco University Medical Center with cool characters like Malcomb (the quirky computer genius), Helen (the brilliant biomechanical engineer) and Dr. Bennington Crawford (the very ethical Chief of Medicine), and these types of characters can always be used, again and again. So in my next novel when I need a computer nerd, well, I have one! Malcomb will make an appearance. To me, that’ll be fun, as I get to continue writing and exploring these characters. So, the supporting characters will remain and reappear, just with a different hero and theme with each book. So not a series, each a standalone medical/scientific thriller, but using a familiar cast of support characters.
And of course, our killer, Edgar Ross. Every book could use a Ross appearance.
Discover more about T.D. Severin on Facebook | Instagram | Website | Amazon