My history as a Psychiatrist is somewhat unusual in that I spent over twenty years in private practice as a country medical doctor in northern California. I attended Boston University as an undergraduate, where I majored in both psychology and pre-medical studies and then studied at The Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, receiving the M.D. degree there in 1975. Two years of residency training in the UC Davis Medical Center system followed, after which I began my work as a general medical physician. Only many years later did I realize that my first love was working with those suffering from emotional and psychological problems. Some of this understanding grew out of having spent years in Buddhist study and practice, where there is a strong emphasis on compassion. Thus I returned several years ago to take residency training in psychiatry at UC Davis Medical Center and was the VA Chief Psychiatric Resident there during my final year. My training was also unusual in that I chose to concentrate heavily on intensive experience and education in psychotherapy, rather than simply on medication management of psychiatric problems. A few years later, I was accepted at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California as a candidate psychoanalyst and am in the late stages of completing a five year training program there. Here in Sacramento, I have divided my professional time between private practice as a psychotherapist in the community and varying amounts of lecturing and teaching in local area psychiatry and psychology training programs and consultation groups.
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