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.

The Almanac, an Embarcadero Media publication which serves Menlo Park, Atherton, Woodside, and Portola Valley California, featured a story “Fiction or the Future?” on Rick Novak and Doctor Vita the same week.