At what point did this story speak to you so much that it had to become a screenplay?

Once I understood what made the protagonist Cole Morrison tick – I couldn’t stop writing. I’m a big fan of emotional realism. I love scripts where the reader can see themselves in the story because there’s magic in that. In medical dramas, the most common protagonist is the misunderstood genius. But in real life, geniuses are hard to find which made writing this pilot a tall order. What I do see a lot of in my life are savants. People incredibly good at one or two things.

In Sawbones, Cole Morrison learned the hard way as a medic in Afghanistan that there is only one kind of medicine on the battlefield – keep the heart pumping and don’t let anyone bleed out. Everything else you can look up on Google or ask a specialist. Intellectually, Cole is a self-trained expert in cardiothoracic medicine. Emotionally, he couldn’t be more ignorant about the mysteries of the human heart. Once I figured out this central contradiction in Cole’s character the story kind of wrote itself.

What is the significance of the title of your script?

Sawbones is a jagged, unsentimental word for a dirty, noble and miraculous profession. My hope is that this script is just that – an unflinching, but ultimately uplifting portrait of American Medicine circa 2025. A story that explores how two medical professionals like Cole and his partner Tía Mária buck the system to serve patients locked out of the tony hospitals we usually see on TV.

Discuss the timeliness of the story in terms of how it speaks to the world today.

Most of the medical shows I love like ER or The Pitt take place in a hospital or on the way to it. But what about the patients who are locked out, turned away, or otherwise can’t risk treatment at the ER for various legal reasons? The law says anyone who shows up at the ER in America gets treatment, but the reality is a lot more complicated and tragic.

People love to talk about disrupting the transportation, energy, and financial sectors – but what about medicine? It’s easy to imagine that the DIY revolution that has redefined information technology over the last decade will someday soon hit the medical system. Sawbones wonders if that revolution might have heroes that look a lot like Cole and María serving their community’s healthcare needs out of their homes.

How does Sawbones fit into your personal writer brand?

If I have a brand, it’s that I imagine every story as a thriller. For me, Sawbones is a medical procedural with the heartbeat of a crime-thriller. It checks all the boxes of a classic medical drama, but adds a crime/ mystery subplot to each episode to expand the format. My hope is that hybridizing these genres highlights the strength of each while avoiding the pitfalls of both.

What research did you do?

I read a lot of interviews with combat medics, ER doctors and a couple war memoirs. I watched medical shows like House, ER and M.A.S.H. My primary goal was to find a fresh way to depict and dramatize trauma medicine. Specifically, I wanted to build a visual and emotional language where the audience is in the driver’s seat of every medical procedure like it’s an action set piece from Mission Impossible. Where you are strapped to the character – feeling every drop of sweat, fear, and hope as we watch them fight to save someone’s life.

Does the rooster have a metaphorical significance?

Honestly? It wasn’t anything I thought about writing the script. If I had to make up a meaning – maybe it’s about new beginnings? As a kid, we raised chickens, and I remember every day started with a rooster’s reveille. The fact that Sawbones opens with a hero rousted by a rooster from deep, dark slumber might mean something. I leave it to the reader to decide.

Discuss Cole’s professional and personal backstories and how they inform building out his character.

Cole was raised by nurses – his mother, his sister, and his neighbor/ second mother Tía María. As a kid, he was learning medicine before he even knew how to read. When he enlisted in the Army to go to Afghanistan it was a natural fit for him to train as a 68 Whiskey. After the war, Cole was left in a lot of physical and emotional pain. The way he copes with it all isn’t always healthy – but it is effective. Why? He’s spent a lifetime as a clinician. It’s the one part of his job he applies to himself. At a base level, he’s trained to observe and infer symptoms, estimate cause and effect, and then take immediate action. For him, life begins and ends with a pulse. It’s the central preoccupation of his life. The show is about him finally learning all the mysteries, wonders, and heartaches that come in between.

How did you structure the pilot episode in terms of act breaks and how it sets up the entire season?

Most of my favorite medical dramas have a three or four act structure like House and ER. Sawbones follows a five-act structure with a cold open to allow enough real estate and rhythm to accommodate the mystery/ crime subplots in each episode.

What were the biggest notes you received in earlier drafts?

On the positive side, readers seemed to enjoy the medical plots. Highlighting how each medical scene is constructed so that you know what the stakes are in the first sentence, things escalate with a clear time clock, and end with unexpected consequences. On the constructive side, I got a lot of feedback about making sure the details of the world felt believable. Specifically, the show is set in a real working-class neighborhood in Los Angeles with a rich multilingual and multicultural history that predates California as a state. I needed to make sure I platformed why the neighborhood has little to no police presence and explain how community solidarity has stepped in to fill that void.

What did you most learn about yourself as a screenwriter and as a person after this experience?

I started this script with one goal in mind – write a gripping blunt force drama with characters so compelling and a budget so low that it would be undeniable to buyers. Obviously, I fell short of that goal, but I did learn something invaluable as a writer. The creative constraints of limiting cast, locations and set pieces somehow enriched rather than confined the story. I don’t know exactly how that happened. Maybe it had something to do with all the time I spent away from the computer researching real locations and neighborhoods to make Los Angeles the heartbeat for the show. The same way that Chicago is the pulse of ER or Pittsburgh animates the bones that move The Pitt. Somewhere between the research and the writing I discovered that Los Angeles is both a city and a feat of collective imagination. A mosaic of disparate neighborhoods and communities that only have the same name because we all come together and say it does. I realized after writing the script that that sense of solidarity in diversity is why I love Los Angeles, and hope everyone who sees the show one day will too.