Tess Gerritsen

Biography:

Tess Gerritsen took an unusual route to a writing career. Her lifelong interest has always been science, especially the creepy and weird aspects. As a child, she would dissect snakes and collect buckets full of lizards to study. It's no wonder, then, that her college studies focused on biology and physical anthropology, which in turn led her to study medicine.

A Phi Beta kappa graduate of Stanford University, she earned her B.A. in Anthropology and went on to receive her M.D. from the University of California, San Francisco. She completed her internal medicine residency in Honolulu, Hawaii, where she worked as a physician. Tess is the author of eight best sellers and in her free time she continues to compile a "weird biological facts" file viewable on her webpage, www.Tessgerritsen.com.

Past Shows:

	Strange Medical Tales
	Sunday December 18, 2005

Author Tess Gerritsen returned for a conversation with Art Bell about strange and dreadful medical issues. Among the topics she touched on: Crooked anesthesiologists sometimes only put patients under lightly. The person being operated might remain fully conscious during the surgery but be completely paralyzed so that they cannot indicate to the doctor that they are awake. Misdiagnoses of death that occur, when a doctor doesn't hear feint signs of heartbeat and respiration. ... More
Host: Art Bell

	Creepy Medical Topics
	Saturday April 23, 2005

Medical doctor turned best-selling author, Tess Gerritsen, discussed the difficulties in diagnosing death and shared several cases of people who were mistakenly declared dead. She recounted a story from 1984 in which a 'corpse' leaped up from an autopsy table and grabbed the pathologist by his throat. The doctor fell over dead from shock, Gerritsen reported. In a tragic case from the 1800s, a young girl 'died' of diphtheria and was entombed in a mausoleum. According to Gerritsen, the girl's remains were found lying on the floor behind the door when the tomb was reopened some time later to bury another family member. Gerritsen also touched on other topics, including the dangers of biotechnology, Bird Flu, and the Tyrannosaur bone that was found to contain well-preserved soft tissue. Gerritsen said the ancient T-Rex tissue was similar to blood vessels recovered from ostrich bone, and provides further credence to the theory that modern birds descended from dinosaurs. ... More
Host: Art Bell

	Disaster in Space
	Saturday October 2, 2004

Best selling novelist, Dr. Tess Gerritsen, discussed the perils of space exploration and her book, Gravity, about a biological disaster aboard the International Space Station. Gerritsen was initially inspired to write the novel after reading about the Progress/Mir docking accident in 1997. She imagined what it would be like if someone she loved was trapped in space and there was nothing she could do to help. Having researched aerospace medicine and the effects of "zero-gravity" exposure, Gerritsen described in gruesome detail what astronauts would experience if a breach in their spacecraft exposed them to the vacuum of space. She said the beginning stages would be very similar to decompression sickness ("the bends"). As the pressure continued falling, the lungs would explode and the blood would boil. Once total vacuum is reached the blood (and the rest of the astronaut) would instantly freeze solid. Gerritsen shared other interesting tidbits gained from her research. She said ... More
Host: Art Bell