Myles Edwin Lee, M.D., author of THE DONATION, is a board-certified cardiothoracic surgeon who has practiced in Los Angeles, California, for thirty-two years. Dr. Lee is a graduate of Harvard University (Cambridge) with a BA cum laude in fine arts and a graduate of Tufts Medical School (Boston). He has authored numerous scientific abstracts, articles, and book chapters in his field, including a textbook of complications in cardiac surgery. He is a senior member of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery. The Donation is his first novel and is currently being evaluated for conversion into a screenplay.

He is at work on a new novel, another medical thriller, more global in scope but which revisits some of the characters in The Donation.

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Dr. Lee is the author of NEAR MISSES IN CARDIAC SURGERY,
published in 1992 by Butterworth-Heinemann, a "textbook-in-disguise" of complications in cardiac surgery which became one of Butterworth's ten top-selling books. It was written on the premise that decisons, not incisions, are the prime determinants of cardiac surgical morbidity and mortality.

NEAR MISSES recounts 43 true cases in which a potentially fatal diagnostic or therapeutic error or oversight underwent quick analysis and correction by Dr. Lee's team. Written in the second person present tense so that the reader feels what it is like to be in a surgeon's shoes, NEAR MISSES presents a synopsis of each case in the expectation that the reader, under pressure, confronted by several possibilities and with incomplete information, will determine the cause of the problem and solve it, as Dr. Lee's team did, before the patient's demise. The next section of each presentation identifies the problem and how it was actually resolved. Each case concludes with a detailed discussion and selected references.

NEAR MISSES was recognized as a pioneering teaching tool and model for the now anonymous presentation of anecdotal complications in cardiac surgical cases from around the world on CTSNet, a website dedicated to cardiothoracic surgery.

NEAR MISSES was reissued in January '09 to introduce new generations of surgeons, fellows, and residents to the principles that are fundamental to successful heart surgery: teamwork, communication, vigilance, standardization and simplicity of techniques, anticipation of the next step (or misstep), and compassion for our patients.

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Dr. Lee's interest in the medical history of George Washington stimulated his publication of an article on Washington's death entitled "George Washington Didn't have to Die" which appeared in "Manuscripts", the official publication of The Manuscript Society, 1997:49(4):295-302.

Six years later, his long-standing interest in the American Revolution, and George Washington in particular, was invigorated by a chance meeting with composer Victoria Bond (www.victoriabond.com) during a frigid, early morning new year's day hike in the Santa Monica mountains. After acknowledging their mutual interest in the subject, Ms. Bond suggested that she and Dr. Lee compose a Washington portrait; thus, PATER PATRIAE: A WASHINGTON PORTRAIT was born. A work for narrator and orchestra and similar in format to the Lincoln Portrait by Aaron Copland and Carl Sandburg, the music is based on actual fife and drum tunes from Washington's era. Dr. Lee wove quotations from Washington's letters and speeches into a narrative that touched not only upon his iconic status but his humanity.

"Nearly all men can withstand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." When Abraham Lincoln enunciated those words, perhaps he had George Washington in mind as the exemplar of his theory. Arguably no leader in American history accepted power with such reluctance, wielded it with such vision, and relinquished it with such decisiveness as George Washington did. He confronted adversity with equanimity, governed without precedent, and by resisting coronation as President for life, enabled the constitutional determination of presidential succession to function.

PATER PATRIAE: A WASHINGTON PORTRAIT is an attempt to encapsulate the essence of Washington's character as reflected by his courage, relentlessness, prescience, and moral clarity that enabled our nation to survive.

PATER PATRIAE premiered on 16 September, 2007 at George Washington's Mount Vernon. Conducted by Victoria Bond, the music was performed by Vol-au-Vent, an ensemble dedicated to contemporary music. Its members appear regularly with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, and other orchestras in the Washington D. C. area. The narration was performed by Rick Davis, Artistic Director of the Theater of the First Amendment and the Center for the Arts at George Mason University, where he is also Provost for Undergraduate Education.

PATER PATRIAE received a stunning, full page review in "Mount Vernon—Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow", 2007:21(2):16