I joke that if my books stop selling, I can always fall back on brain surgery," he says. "But I am still very interested in it. If I had to do it over again, I would still study medicine. I think of myself more as a doctor who writes, rather than a writer who happens to be a doctor." He explained the popularity of his works thus: "The main reason is, we all realize we are at risk. We're all going to be patients sometime," he says. "You can write about great white sharks or haunted houses, and you can say I'm not going into the ocean or I'm not going in haunted houses, but you can't say you're not going to go into a hospital.

• Year of the Intern (1972), ISBN 0-451-16555-1
• Coma (1977), ISBN 0-451-20739-4
• Sphinx (1979), ISBN 0-451-15949-7
• Brain (1981), ISBN 0-451-15797-4
• Fever (1982), ISBN 0-425-17420-4
• Godplayer (1983), ISBN 0-425-17638-X
• Mindbend (1985), ISBN 0-451-14108-3
• Outbreak (1987), ISBN 0-425-10687-X
• Mortal Fear (1988), ISBN 0-425-11388-4
• Mutation (1989), ISBN 0-425-11965-3
• Harmful Intent (1990), ISBN 0-425-12546-7
• Vital Signs (1991), ISBN 0-425-13176-9
• Blindsight (1992), ISBN 0-425-13619-1
• Terminal (1993), ISBN 0-425-15506-4
• Fatal Cure (1994), ISBN 0-399-13879-X
• Acceptable Risk (1994), ISBN 0-399-13971-3
• Contagion (1995), ISBN 0-425-15594-3
• Chromosome 6 (1997), ISBN 0-425-16124-2
• Invasion (1997), ISBN 0-425-21957-7
• Toxin (1998), ISBN 0-425-16661-9
• Vector (1999), ISBN 0-425-17299-6
• Abduction (2000), ISBN 0-425-17736-X
• Shock (2001), ISBN 0-425-18286-X
• Seizure (2003), ISBN 0-425-19794-8
• Marker (2005), ISBN 0-425-20734-X
• Crisis (2006), ISBN 0-425-21657-8
• Critical (2007), ISBN 978-0-399-15423-2
• Foreign Body (2008), ISBN 0-399-15502-3
• Intervention (2009), ISBN 0-399-15570-8
• Cure (2010), ISBN 0-399-15662-3