Die Once Live Forever

Note: 20% of the royalties from sales of this book will be donated to Operation Walk.

From the heart and mind of world-renowned orthopedic surgeon, Lawrence Dorr, M.D., his second historical novel, Die Once Live Forever continues the story of the Sullivan family’s journey through life woven intimately with the transformation of medicine.

The book begins during World War II where his first novel, Die Once Live Twice, left off. It follows the grandchildren of Katherine as they devote their lives to the family heritage of advancing medicine. Medicine itself is in its Golden Age of developing effective treatments for disabling diseases. Success has been found mostly with those treatments that fix the human machine, such as for structural heart disease, cataracts, fractures and arthritic joints. Vaccines for viral diseases have been developed because viruses can now be grown in the laboratory by adding penicillin to the cultures to prevent bacteria from overgrowing the virus, which had prevented earlier success. But medical diseases like cancer have frustrated doctors, who have learned important information such as the structure of DNA, only to have the answers to effect a cure remain secret. Medicine has been its own enemy by keeping proven treatments from the public because of internal strife within medical organizations, as the successful cataract operation in this story illustrates. Finally, medicine becomes so successful with its discovery of treatments that businessmen and government intrude on its governance, with consequences that change it forever.

Die Once Live Forever combines a physician's skill, intellect and knowledge of medicine with wonderful story-telling, and chronicles an exciting time in our history when lives were made better, and longer, by courageous men and women who took big risks.

Dr. Lawrence Dorr is an internationally respected orthopedic surgeon, one of only two surgeons to be president of all three prestigious knee and hip replacement societies. He was honored in 2005 by the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons as Humanitarian of the Year for founding Operation Walk, which provides pro bono surgeries in the developing world. A native of Iowa and a graduate of the University of Iowa Medical School, Dr. Dorr, with his wife Marilyn, established a chair for hip surgery at the University of Iowa and founded the Dimensions Program for healthcare students at Cornell College in Iowa. Dr. Dorr has written 300 scientific articles, as well as the definitive book on minimally invasive posterior hip replacement performed with computer navigation. But it's his talent at storytelling, and his fascination with, and passion for, medicine that drove him to write historical fiction novels about the transformation of his profession beginning with the Civil War. Die Once Live Twice ends at World War II, and this novel begins there and ends in 1975, following the Sullivan family all the way! He and Marilyn live in Pasadena, California, and he practices at Keck Hospital of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.