For Heike Daldrup-Link, a clinician-scientist at Stanford Radiology, writing is all about “something that bothers you, [or] something that makes you think.” 

Daldrup-Link is a tenured physician and professor who specializes in pediatric radiology. On top of her clinical and research work, she also publishes novels under her pen name, Elisabeth Link. Since her debut as an author in 2022, Daldrup-Link has published four medical mystery and thriller novels. Her most recent work, “The Body Transplant,” was released in Sept. 2024.

Daldrup-Link’s journey to radiology and writing has been anything but linear. Many physicians decide on the profession early in life. 

“For me, it was different,” Daldrup-Link said. Teaching, writing and journalism were all on the table, but her ultimate interest in medicine came out of a few personal experiences. 

Growing up, Daldrup-Link had no physicians in her family. From a young age, she associated medicine with “pain and needle sticks and unpleasant visits,” she said. Then, when she was a teenager, both her grandfather and a classmate died of cancer.

“It was quite puzzling to me what happened exactly, and how something like that could happen so quickly,” she said. These personal experiences sparked Daldrup-Link’s curiosity in medicine.

Reflecting on her own path to medicine, Daldrup-Link encouraged current or prospective physicians with similar nonlinear journeys. Not having a “eureka” moment or “knowing from kindergarten you wanted to be a doctor” doesn’t mean one isn’t meant for the profession, she said

Daldrup-Link completed medical school residency at the University of Munster Medical School in Germany. Now at Stanford as a pediatric radiologist, Daldrup-Link also presents on various boards, convening with physicians from multiple disciplines. During weekly meetings, the board discusses complex tumor cases.

It was from these meetings that the idea for her first novel came out of. One case in particular caught Daldrup-Link’s eye: a child patient referred from a different institution.

“It was clear that we had the expertise to treat this particular tumor,” Daldrup-Link said, “but it wasn’t possible for this child to come to Stanford because the insurance wouldn’t cover it.”

This patient’s story inspired “The Claim: A Medical Mystery.” In this book, Daldrup-Link writes of the abduction of a medical insurance agent, which later reveals more about the practices of a profit-based healthcare system. 

“Coming from Europe, where everybody has healthcare, that was my first exposure to [insurance denial],” Daldrup-Link said.

The case motivated Daldrup-Link to start investigating health insurance challenges. She uncovered a long list of patients being denied care at Stanford: cases of patients waiting weeks for Food and Drug Administration (FDA) treatment approval, others being denied scans at Stanford due to insurance.

“I thought, ‘Who does that?’” Daldrup-Link said. “‘Who sits at the insurance desk and says, this patient can’t get their cancer treatment or medication? Who does that to a child?’”

Daldrup-Link felt like she had “opened Pandora’s box,” she said. Bit by bit, she processed these medical incidents through fiction. In her next book, “The Claim: A Medical Mystery,” Daldrup-Link created a character who ultimately got a happy ending.

“That’s what I can do with fiction: I can take reality and create a story where we turn this into a happy outcome, which you might not get in real life,” she said.

Daldrup-Link shared what she hopes her readers will take away from her work: “I want to make people aware of these problems with the healthcare system. I also want to spark discussion around healthcare insurance coverage issues and to correct that.”

Colleagues of Daldrup-Link affirmed her commitment to patients.

“I always feel most confident that my patient is getting the best care when Dr. Daldrup-Link is part of the team,” Raya Saab, professor of pediatric cancer biology, wrote to The Daily.

Daldrup-Link’s most recently published novel, titled “The Body Transplant,” tells the story of a cancer patient who undergoes a full body transplant from a suicide victim.

With this book, Daldrup-Link pivoted from mystery to thriller, receiving months of mentorship from Sarah Pittock, an advanced lecturer in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR). Even on top of a full day’s work as a professor of medicine and writing in a second language as a non-native English speaker, Daldrup-Link was diligent in incorporating Pittock’s feedback. 

Pittock shared that “The Body Transplant” suggests that “in spite of astonishing new medical technology, humans require love and connection to heal.”

“I think [Daldrup-Link] took joy from really testing herself in new ways artistically, thinking about how to put her knowledge as a professor of medicine into the world of fiction,” Pittock said.

Just stating problems factually “doesn’t ‘get’ people as much,” Daldrup-Link said. Instead, “if you pack a problem into a story and tell a real story, it can sometimes be more impactful and people sympathize and empathize more.”

As examples, Daldrup-Link referenced Anne Frank’s “The Diary of Anne Frank,” George Orwell’s “1984” and Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which discuss oppression and “the human cost of war and prejudice” through storytelling, she said.

For students or physicians interested in pursuing a similar project, Daldrup-Link offered a few pieces of advice: “It’s important to think: Do you have something important to say?”

If so, putting it in a story can help both the author and the reader “process,” Daldrup-Link said. “Maybe in the end, that’ll make the world a better world.”