TonyCarol Trimble's "The Reason Why" (short story, humor, free): "WHO cares"!

A group of aliens have arrived at an office of World Health Organization with a complaint against humanity...

Fact sheet.

First published: Medgadget, 6 December 2006.
Download full text from publisher's site (click "Read More..." at the bottom of page & scroll down to see this)
Rating: B.

Maria's "A Different Person" (short story, dementia, free)

Recall "Jurassic Park" episode where missing fragments of dinosaur DNA are patched with DNA fragments from some African frogs - resulting in their unexpected breeding in the wild? This story is a variation of this idea.

Story summary.

Narrator is a neurosurgeon who's just operated upon her own dad who had an advanced case of dementia. Procedure involved introducing extra brain material into his head. Lacking time to grow it in a lab culture from patient's own brain tissue, she kills another man to get mature neurons for surgery. With results you can already guess...

Fact sheet.

First published: Medgadget, 6 December 2006.
Download full text from publisher's site (need to click "Read More..." at bottom of page & scroll down to see this)
Rating: B.

Daniel Gow's "APA 4000" (short story, free): A robot medic proves his worth

It sounds like a variation of Harry Harrison's "Arm of the Law". Title expands to "Automated Physician's Assistant, model 4000" - that's the robot assistant to a doctor; most of the story calls the robot Bob.

Clinic management has forced the robot as assistant on an unwilling doctor - so doctor does everything to get rid of the robot, until one fine day the robot really proves its worth...

Fact sheet.

First published: Medgadget, 28 November 2008.
Download full text from publisher's site (need to click "Read More..." link at bottom of page & then scroll down to see this story)
Rating: B.
Related: Robots in fiction.

Charles Pappas' "Different Day, Same Chip" (flash fiction, chip implants, free)

What if there is a chip implanted in your body that can monitor all sorts of health data, & it's cheap enough to be widely deployed? This is the story of the resulting dystopia - or something close to it - from an individual's perspective...

Fact sheet.

First published: Medgadget, 28 November 2008.
Download full text from publisher's site (need to click "Read More..." link at bottom of page to read later parts of this story)
Rating: B.

A'Llyn Ettien's "Immigrants" (short story, survival, free): Is any cost too high to be able to have children?

Story summary.

Mostly a sad story of a colonized world - now quarantined from rest of humanity because of a local viral contagion. Infection that kills most babies, adults need constant "maintenance" treatment & still keep getting killed by it.

Only way a woman can have a baby is by getting the embryo gene-treated with virus - a process that mutates children into another species altogether!

Story is of a woman's determination to still have a child of her own - even if it will not exactly be human.

See also.

1. Judith Merril's "That Only a Mother": Very moving story of a woman in a similar dilemma - baby is almost certain to be deformed, but she wants it too much.

Fact sheet.

First published: Medgadget, 23 October 2007.
Download full text from publisher's site (need to scroll down the page to see the story).
Rating: A.

Phredd Serenissima's "Dr Luscious Franks and the Amazing Recyclotron" (short story, mad professor, free): Curing the sickness that is "life"!

When Kevin, the massenger boy, went to deliver the parcel to Dr Luscious Delirious Franks at "Dr Luscious D Franks' Evil Laboratory (A Limited Liability Cooperative)", he could not have suspected the horror that awaited him...

Caution: Story uses a lot of jargon.

See also.

1. Raymond F Jones' "Correspondence Course": If I'm not mistaking this story for something else, the plot structure of Serenissima's story is similar to this one - only in Jones' version the protagonist meets an alien with his own agenda rather than a mad professor.

Fact sheet.

First published: Medgadget, 23 October 2007.
Download full text from publisher's site (need to click "Read More..." at bottom of page & scroll down)
Rating: B.

Evan Perriello's "HeartPlus" (flash fiction, heart replacement, free)

Worried about heart disease? Upgrade your still healthy heart!

Fact sheet.

First published: Medgadget, 7 December 2009.
Download full text from publisher's site ( scroll down to see this story). [via Marooned]
Rating: A.

Hans Patrick Griesser's "What's More Affordable than Free?" (flash fiction, surgery, free)

Sometimes funny story about the future of health care - as internet & smart phones start interacting with health care networks...

Fact sheet.

First published: Medgadget, 7 December 2009.
Download full text from publisher's site (need to click "Read More..." link at the bottom of page & then scroll down to see this story). [via Marooned]
Rating: A.
Added to my "best of 2009" list.