Paperback writer

Watch an episode of ER, and you’d be under the impression that emergency physicians have little time to do anything but crack open ribcages, yell “clear!” and flirt with surgeons – even when they’re supposed to be having a day off.

Turns out, says Daniel Kalla, being an ER doc gives you plenty of time to indulge in other pursuits. “Emergency docs generally work, at most, four shifts a week,” explains the St. Paul’s Hospital emergency physician over a cappuccino at Caffé Artigiano in Kerrisdale, near his home. “Sometimes you’ll work a couple of evenings and you’ll have the day off, or a shift won’t start until five in the afternoon.” Dark-haired, with intense eyes and a self-possessed nonchalance, the 40-year-old Kalla has a profile that was made for the inside of a book jacket – which is where his mug now regularly appears. “Almost everybody in the ER has a hobby or an outside interest,” he says. “I get most of my writing done during bankers’ hours.”

What Kalla does in his off-hours, though, could hardly be categorized as a mere hobby. In the past six years he has written a number of “medical thriller” novels; two have been published in paperback and his first hardcover, Rage Therapy, is due out next month. His fourth book, Blood Lies, will hit shelves in 2007. As the titles suggest, Kalla’s work has provided the seeds of inspiration for much of his writing. The plot of his first book, Pandemic, was sparked by a meeting of the SARS task force (of which he was a part) back when the disease was hitting headlines and sparking public concern. When someone commented that the virus seemed to skip randomly from continent to continent, the idea struck Kalla: what if someone was spreading it on purpose? Released in 2000, Pandemic has sold around 150,000 copies – two-thirds of them in the U.S. – and was optioned by Illusion Films.

Despite his literary successes, Kalla says he only started writing recently. “I tell people, somewhat tongue in cheek, that I wrote a pretty decent postcard in about Grade 12, and nothing else until I was 30 years old,” he jokes. With a New York agent and publisher, Kalla has obviously made up for lost time. He doesn’t have any plans to hang up his scrubs any time soon, but is trying to cut back on his shifts. “Sometimes the frantic energy and unpredictability of the emergency room translates well into the writing,” he says. “But I couldn’t write half of the stuff I actually see down there. No one would believe it.”