Arthur Hailey was born in Lutton, Bedford-shire, England. He served in the Royal Air force as a pilot in World War II. He migrated to Canada and has written best sellers like Airport, Wheels and Hotel. He moved to the Bahamas with his writer wife Sheila. Arthur Hailey died on November, 2004 leaving a legacy of best sellers and over 170 million books in print.
Strong Medicine, a typical Arthur Hailey potboiler, has him dissect the good and the bad of the pharmaceutical industry. Just as other Hailey books, he selects a public institution and develops the characters who make up this institution, and portrays how their attitudes and relationships form the ultimate pillar for the organization.
In Strong Medicine, Arthur Hailey examines the details of the women’s march in their work place. In the character of Celia Jordan, he presents a talented lady trying to break the glass ceiling to reach the top most post of her company. She encounters chauvinistic behavior from all around and also support from certain men who are instrumental for her rise.

The Books begins by Celia reminiscing her life on her way to her home and is seen remarking to her husband about the threat faced by her because of a certain Senator Donaghue. Then Hailey takes us back in time where Celia as an young sales representative tries to market some of her drugs to Andrew Jordan, a young physician. He being in a very disturbed state of mind is very curt with her. Celia, understands that a medicine developed by her company, in the trial stage is capable of saving his patient. She cuts through the protocol and delivers it to him. Andrew administers this medicine and is able to save his patient.
They are married following a whirl wind romance and soon Celia is pregnant and a mother of 2 all through working her way up in her company. This is the most unbelievable part in this book because she has a picture perfect family and everything works according to her plan. Her babies are perfect, husband adores and encourages her and she has risen steadily in-spite of motherhood and all the odds.
In the company Celia has a very supportive boss, Sam Hawthorne who encourages her and is grooming her for succession. Celia delivers a speech in the annual company meet, castigating the lack of training, vision and leadership, rendering the top management furious. She is inches away from being fired, that Sam steps in to save her. All this happens with a perfect home-life, brilliant Kids who do well in boarding schools and a husband who whisks her to Ecuador to rekindle their relationship.
Celia hitches her star to that of Sam Hawthorne and is rewarded when he becomes the president. She being the vice-president soon realizes her ambitions. Both Sam and herself start two projects. First one is the Montayne project by the French who are developing an anti-emetic for pregnant women. Second one is to tap in to the British capabilities in pharmacy and develop a off shore research unit. They select a brilliant scientist, martin Peat Smith who joins their company after a lot of persuasion from Celia.
Celia has serious misgiving about the Montayne project and her fears are found to be true because their medicine causes congenital defects in the babies. Sam Hawthorne, who has profound belief in the drug had given it to his pregnant daughter, ultimately resulting in a handicapped baby. Meanwhile the FDA is hot on his heels about the drug and he is being blackmailed by an shady FDA official Dr Mace. The guilt drives Sam to suicide and ultimately Celia is in-charge of running the company. Felding Roth is being investigated by Senator Donaghue and Celia ultimately has to rescue it, earning the enmity of the senator. Soon after incidents of an affair with Martin Smith, power struggles with Gordan Lord and the financial rescue of the company Celia is firmly entrenched in her position. The book ends with her flying down to combat Senator Donaghue and appear before the senate’s investigative committee. Apart from this sudden ending the whole book never fails to grip you and you come away with a belief that superwoman Celia will overcome the senator too.

Arthur Hailey was born in Lutton, Bedford-shire, England and served in the royal air force during world war II. He later emigrated to Canada and started his career as a writer. His extensive research on the subjects give his novels a very realistic sense and most of his books have gone on to become the best sellers of the day. He later set up home in the Bahamas, to avoid the extreme taxation in Canada. He died on November, 2004 living behind a legacy of amazing books and movies.
Final Diagnosis is one of Arthur Hailey’s best sellers which depicts the workings of a large hospital . At the centre of the drama is Joe Pearson, an aging pathologist who has refused to accept his retirement. He had been once the whole and soul of the hospital with all the doctors accepting his expertise. But with advancing age he has lost his grip on his subject and this has made him impermeable to change. He refuses to keep himself up to date with the latest technological advances and refuses to let others to modernize the same. He has powerful friends in the medical board who patronize him, thus making change difficult.

The novel opens with Kent O’ Donell the new medical director trying to make Pearson see that because of his tardiness the patients reports were getting delayed thus provoking lot of complains. He bulldozes his way, with the help of certain doctors to force Pearson to accept a second pathologist to help him. David Coleman, the young and highly qualified doctor who arrives to man the pathology department has to face the hostility of Pearson. The politics becomes so acute that Pearson refuses to accept a new technological advancement to test the RH factor called the Direct Coombs test resulting in the death of the new born baby of John Alexander. This proves to be his undoing and he himself is aghast at his behavior. Pearson at last realizes the gravity of his actions and offers to resign. He also persuades, Eustace Swayne, a long time friend and medical board member to continue funding the hospital. He also tries to make amends by asking Swayne to fund John Alexander’s medical education.
As his last working days draw near Pearson works tirelessly to stem a typhoid outbreak and saves Three counties hospital from closure. He tells his successor David Coleman to find time for himself and his needs. As he leaves he says “Listen to an old man who’s been through it all, who made the mistake of falling behind. Don’t let it happen to you! Lock yourself in a closet if you have to! Get away from the phone and the files and paper, and read and learn and listen and keep up to date! Then they can never touch you, never say, ‘He’s finished, all washed up; he belongs to yesterday.’ Because you’ll know as much as they do—and more. Because you’ll have experience to go with it”.
Thats the echoing theme of Final Diagnosis, Man’s failure to accept change and to keep abreast of it. Before the predicament of Joe Pearson all other characters pale in comparison and work towards to magnifying the folly of a man who refused to see the writing on the wall to look forward. Another gripping tale from Arthur Hailey who has wonderfully created the hospital atmosphere and the politics of health care.

Doctors was published by Erich Segal in 1988, and soon jumped onto the # 1 bestseller on the New York Times list. Erich Segal has been known for extensive research for his novels, and the same was true for this one. There was a lot of research done into the life of doctors, starting from the time that they enter medical school and covering their experiences, the type of training they go through, as well as the problems and challenges they face. Somebody reading this novel would get a good idea of what the life of medical students is like, and carry onto the emotions of adult doctors.
The book covers the life of some of the characters who are part of the 1962 Harvard Medical School batch, with a special emphasis on 2 of these.

The 2 main characters who are the focus of this book, include Barney Livingston and Laura Castellano. These are characters who have grown up as neighbors since they were children, have been very close, very good friends, attended medical school together, and start seeing the harsh elements of life. As medical students and doctors, they come to face an extremely tough education demanding huge amounts of study, face patients who have all kinds of illnesses, many of them tragic. They learn that apparently the medical profession demands that its practitioners should not get personally involved with the problems of their patients, because otherwise they will themselves start to get weak and affected.
The book also takes the lives of other students along with them, such as their brilliant but black colleague Bennett Landsmann, who faces the then huge issue of racism, and ultimately almost falls victim to it. They come face to face shocking problems in the medical fraternity such as misdiagnosis, colleagues who are not competent or indulge in conduct that offends them. The book traces their lives to the point where they have each had their relationships, but ultimately realize that eventually they are made for each other. The book is gripping, and is certainly worth reading.