You will love Harbour City. Most visitors to the island drive right through, without taking time to explore its attractions. But you’re not most visitors. You will get to spend some time. Go head. Turn on your radio. That’s BC Bud, 101.3 FM on your Home and Native Band. He will announce your special arrival. And if you catch something more than a salmon, you could be referred to Doctor Sababa, an Internal Medicine consultant at Harbour City Regional, the Sage of the Salish Sea. He would amuse you with his wit and wisdom, and the spontaneous combustion and thrust they generate, often mixed in unequal proportions, as he dances with the devil in the pale moonlight. Before there was artificial intelligence, he was the real thing, working in the mysterious old ways of a masterless samurai. In the myriad motions of all celestial objects, he was a meteor. With proper care, you might even survive your encounter. Welcome to the spring and summer of his Casebook. Welcome to Sababaland.

3. Everything you thought
you knew about
Medicine is wrong.

7. Fiction NOUN /ˈfikSH(ə)n/
Literature in the form of prose, especially novels, that describes imaginary events and people.

8. Elements of Good Fiction
• Places
• People
• Ideas
• Things

9. Elements of The Casebook
• What is Doctor Sababa?
• Where is Doctor Sababa?
• Who is Doctor Sababa?
• What are Doctor Sababa’s Cases?

10. What is Doctor Sababa?

11. Where is Doctor Sababa?

13. Harbour City Regional Hospital

14. ICU

16. Hospital Ward

17. ‘Can you dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?’

18. Doctor Sababa’s Office

22. Sababa’s Lake Hous

23. Who is Doctor Sababa?

24. Normal Personality
• Boring, uncharismatic, tone deaf
• Obliging, humble, reverent
• Gregarious, sociable, selfless
• Friendly, caring, intuitive
• Socially adept
• Self-scrutinizes his own behaviour
• Polite
• Nonsmoker

25. Unconventional Personality
• Magnetic, charismatic, musical
• Condescending, arrogant, sarcastic
• Misanthropic, antisocial, self-indulgent
• Aloof, cold-blooded, scientific
• Lacks basic social skills
• Rationalizes his behaviour
• Brusqueness of manner (especially when occupied in an
interesting case)
• Smokes a calabash pipe

26. Expert Consultant
• Brought into cases that have proven too difficult for other investigators
• Genius—brilliant mind able to think outside the box
• Mind-blowing observational ability, deductive skills, and special esoteric knowledge
• Can deduce a great deal from just looking at a person
• Knows a lot about everything—extraordinary aptitude for minutiae
• Passionate about knowledge for its own sake
• Tends to come to rapid conclusions after the briefest examination of the circumstances
• Lazy unless looking into something that intrigues him
• Indifferent to the people he works for
• Views clients as annoying yet necessary variables
• Committed to helping others for the mystery itself
• Driven by the challenge to solve whatever puzzle is at hand, and good at it

27. Inspiration Dr. Joseph Bell Sherlock Holmes Dr. Lawrence Winkler
Marital Status Single Separated Married
Address London, England Princeton, NJ Harbour City, BC
Poisons Cocaine Hydrocodone Pinot noir

28. • Hero possessing the intellectual power to produce
coherence and restore order out of random, distressing
events
• The critical element is the resolution of the puzzle rather
than the restoration of the person
•Not patient-centred (or client-centred) care approaches

29. To Be a Consultant

30. Type of Consults

32. Suits

33. ‘Health Authority’

36. Sababa’s Equation of Medical-Bureaucratic
Inequity
x = ________Power__________
(Knowledge + Accountability)
where xideal = 1;
xbureaucrat = Infinity;
xphysician = 0

37. Snowflakes

39. Prologue
The Making of Doctor Sababa
At Work and Play in the House of God
The Casebook of Doctor Sababa
Spring—The Book of Wind
1. The Case of the Ultimate Artery
2. The Case of the Broken Heart
3. The Case of the Cornelian Dilemma
4. The Case of the Parthian Shot
5. The Case of the Syncopated Rhythm
6. The Case of the Lush Vegetation
Summer—The Book of Fire
7. The Case of the Flushed Fisherman
8. The Case of the Melting Man
9. The Case of the Pretty Bird
10. The Case of the Sumatran Mosquito
11. The Case of the Deadly Tree
12. The Case of the Double Double
Whammy
Epilogue
Characters
The Analects of Doctor Sababa
Songs and Poems
Table of Contents

40. 1. The Case of the Ultimate Artery

41. 2. The Case of the Broken
Heart

42. 3. The Case of the Cornelian Dilemma

43. 4. The Case of the Parthian Shot

44. 5. The Case of the Syncopated Rhythm

45. 7. The Case of the Flushed Fisherman

46. 8. The Case of the Melting Man

47. 9. The Case of the Pretty
Bird

48. 10. The Case of the Sumatran Mosquito

49. 11. The Case of the Deadly Tree

50. 12. The Case of the Double Double Whammy

51. 6. The Case of the Lush Vegetation