Kelly Parsons's "Doing Harm"

Kelly Parsons is a board-certified urologist with degrees from Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania, and Johns Hopkins, and he is on the faculty at the University of California San Diego. He lives with his family in Southern California.

Here Parsons dreamcasts an adaptation of Doing Harm, his first novel:

I love movies. Some of my favorites include, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Searchers, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Graduate, Raging Bull, and—because I’m a child of the eighties—Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back.

In fact, I frequently listen to movie soundtracks as I write, blocking out scenes in my head and imagining how they would play out on the big screen: gestures, facial expressions, choreography, even lighting.

So I’m a little embarrassed (and more than a little surprised) to admit that, until very recently, I had given almost no thought as to how I would cast Doing Harm. But here goes.

The lead role, Dr. Steve Mitchell, would preferably go to an actor in his late twenties to mid thirties. It needs to be someone who can look convincingly ordinary while invoking sympathy for a potentially unsympathetic protagonist: perhaps Andrew Garfield, James McAvoy, Jesse Eisenberg, or Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

The actress who plays GiGi, the medical student who figures large in the story, should be young (medical students are typically in their twenties), attractive, and—most importantly—convey fierce intelligence and ambition: Emma Stone, Ellen Page, or Emma Watson.
Finally, for the role of Luis Martinez, the Harvard-educated surgery trainee with the shadowy past, I would envision the excellent Rodrigo Santoro.

Learn more about Doing Harm at the publisher's website, and visit Kelly Parsons's Facebook page.

Writers Read: Kelly Parsons.

The Page 69 Test: Doing Harm.

--Marshal Zeringue