On June 5, 2019 the Almanac, the home newspaper for the California communities of Menlo Park, Atherton, Portola Valley and Woodside featured a cover story on Rick Novak and his new novel Doctor Vita.

by Angela Swartz / Almanac

Dr. Rick Novak poses for a portrait at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, May 23. Photo by Magali Gauthier/The Almanac


Between his time in the operating room, teaching, and raising his three sons, Atherton resident Dr. Rick Novak has found time to write two novels.
Novak, 65, an anesthesiologist at the Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, recently published his latest, “Doctor Vita,” a story about an artificial intelligence (AI) physician module that goes awry.
It’s a science fiction novel that explores how technological breakthroughs like artificial intelligence and robots will affect medical care — and already have.
This is the link to the Almanac article.