Interview with Melissa Yi – S. 9, Ep. 21

This episode of the Crime Cafe features my interview with crime writer Melissa Yi. Don't miss our discussion of her Dr. Hope Sze series and the Seven Deadly Sins! And the play Terminally Ill! Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so. We also have a shop now. Check it out! Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe The transcript can be downloaded here. Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today is a doctor who studied emergency medicine and works in emergency rooms, I presume. She has received many accolades for her work, including a Derringer Award for best short story of 2023, and finalist for the Silver Falchion for best thriller. She also writes medical humor - which I find fascinating and want to know more about - and has won speculative fiction awards as well. It's my pleasure to have with me today Melissa Yi. Hi, Melissa. Thanks so much for being with us today. Melissa: Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for having me. Debbi: Well, it's my pleasure to have you on, believe me, and your background just fascinates me. I used to be an EMT and my husband was a firefighter. He's retired now, so I can thoroughly appreciate the whole hectic thing involving emergency rooms, what that must be like. Do you still practice medicine? Melissa: I do. Not as much as I did, but I still like to keep my hand in. Debbi: Excellent. Melissa: I just have to say good for you guys, because now you can sleep. The nights are so hard. Debbi: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. I remember getting up in the middle of the night to go on calls and it was like, whoa! I mean, sometimes those five in the morning ones were the worst, right before the dawn. I would get into the back of the ambulance and would just feel nauseous. I couldn't explain that. Melissa: Oh, that's because that's a very physical job also. For me, I would say 3:00, 4:00 AM is tough because you've been working so long, but there's still so much to go. To me, 5:00, 6:00 people are starting to wake up. Normal people are alive at this time, it's not so bad. You might start to get some sort of backup, but the middle of the night, really, you are it, and I just find that very tough and very bad for circadian rhythms. Debbi: Oh, yeah. Yeah, really. I was much younger then, so I could adjust to it a little more easily, I suppose. But I've always been sort of in awe of people who go to medical school, because I went to law school and the med school was right down the street from me. And I was like, wow, I'm so overwhelmed with work, but what if I were in med school? Oh my God! You guys have to study all these bones, all these muscles, all these nerves. It just amazes me. Melissa: I think law school is very cognitively taxing, though. I think there's so much involved, so that it's a different kind of stress. Debbi: Very much so. Melissa: Medicine is really holding people's lives in your hands. That's the stressful part of medicine. Debbi: Yes, yes. That to me has always been … you guys are really in there, doing stuff, fixing people's medical problems, things like that. What is it that inspired you to create Dr. Hope Sze? Melissa: Very good. Debbi: Thank you. Melissa: You know, for me, honestly, there were a few things. I'm from Ontario in Canada, and the medical system was relatively good when I went to medical school. People probably don't know this, but in Canada, the federal government has the money and then they give the money to the different provinces, and when you finish medical school, you get matched anywhere in the country. You don't have to apply everywhere,