Doctor's Giller-winning book to become TV drama

cbc.ca
November 14, 2006

incent Lam's Giller-winning Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures will be developed into a drama series on the Movie Network, Shaftesbury Films announced Friday.

The 12 interconnected short stories about the struggles of a group of young physicians took home the $40,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize earlier this week.

Bloodletting was the debut book for Lam, an emergency room doctor in Toronto. He said despite the success of the book he has no intention of giving up his medical career.

"I'm thrilled to see that my book has started to take on a life of its own," Lam said in a statement.

Movie Network spokeswoman Michelle Marion said the stories in the book are ideally suited to cable television.

"ER is a medical drama for conventional television. Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures is a medical drama for pay television," she said.

"You think you are in for a journey through the expected world of what you know about doctors and medicine, and instead you are treated to an unexpected, almost metaphoric journey of doctors dealing with powerful internal conflict and beautiful human frailty in ways that catch the reader off-guard."

Lam's writing career got a boost after meeting author Margaret Atwood while working as a ship's doctor on an Arctic cruise. Atwood agreed to read his work and became his mentor and advocate.

Shaftesbury films recently co-produced a TV movie of Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride, set to air next year on CBC.

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