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I wanted to be a neurologist. That seemed to be the most difficult, most intriguing, and the most important aspect of medicine, which had links with psychology, aggression, behavior, and human affairs.

Medicine was certainly intended to be a career. I wanted to become a psychiatrist, an adolescent ambition which, of course, is fulfilled by many psychiatrists.

I grew up in a scientific world, the son of a neurosurgeon.

But I spent just two calendar years at Cornell University, though it was covering more than three years of work, and then went to medical school and did become interested in psychiatry, and even helped form a kind of psychiatry club in medical school.

I always wanted to follow in the footsteps of my maternal grandfather, who was a doctor.

I did a term at Cambridge University studying medicine, so I could potentially have followed in Mum and Dad's footsteps and become a doctor.

Although I liked especially physics and mathematics for which I had considerable talent, I decided to study medicine. This profession had for me a strong emotional appeal, which was reinforced by having an uncle who was an excellent surgeon.

My parents had chosen the medical profession for me. I even studied a few semesters at St Xavier's College, but at the back of my mind, I always wanted to be a musician like my father.

Medicine was certainly intended to be a career. I wanted to become a psychiatrist, an adolescent ambition which, of course, is fulfilled by many psychiatrists. The doctor/psychiatrist figures in my writing are alter egos of a kind, what I would have been had I not become a writer - a personal fantasy that I've fed into my fiction.

I was fascinated by each area I studied, whether neurology, urology or surgery.