Don't miss WHYY's interview with Vikram Paralkar!

Recently Vikram Paralkar, author of The Afflictions, visited The Pulse to chat with Peter Crimmins about the inspirations behind his strange and haunting fictional encyclopedia of medicine:

In his day job as an oncologist, Paralkar, the scientist, realizes that disease does not make ethical sense, nor theological, nor moral sense.

“It’s intrinsic to people that we find a moral purpose to things,” said Paralkar. “Especially with cancer, people ask – why did this happen to me? The answer is because cells divide and sometimes they make mistakes. That answer is immensely unsatisfying. It’s just the way we are programmed, we try to find reasons and patterns.”

Head over to WHYY public radio and give it a listen!