The Unruly Prison Doctor [The 1970s]

In 1971 America, modern medicine is advancing rapidly, with new technologies and treatments continually emerging.

Yet money dictates the direction of healthcare, class determines who can access treatment, racial prejudice undermines equal care, and profit crushes doctors' consciences. Some even use human bodies for...

Behind the sacred aura of medicine at the time lay countless dark sides of human nature, ensnared by capital, race, and class.

Of course, none of that has much to do with Yao Li, who comes from a family of imperial physicians but studies modern medicine.

Raised on meals shared by Chinatown families, she graduated and, thanks to her late parents' reputation, just barely found a job to keep herself fed: prison doctor.

One day, a burly patient who had been released from prison introduced her to a big shot who offered her $100 to perform an appendectomy.

No hesitation. Take the job first and deal with the rest later.

Good grief, she opened the abdomen and found a perforation...

What now? Close it up as if nothing happened?

Or keep pretending and stitch it up? The patient might live another half a day if she bought some time.

She'd only ever removed an appendix from a rabbit!

Maybe she should just run away!

"Forensic Medicine System activated. Detected completion of an abdominal incision..."

1. New idea, blurb not final, 2026.6.4

2. I want to write a doctor who's both righteous and wicked. Saving this idea!

Purpose: May there be no illness in the world, and no need for doctors.