I was fortunate to be raised by two great parents, who instilled in me an affinity for Science and pursuit of verifiable belief, for Art and creativity, and for empathy for all living creatures.  With their influence I found strength in standing up for bullied kids in elementary school, a schizophrenic transient roommate in college, and pulling a suicidal peer off a bridge in college.  

 

During graduate school, 1984 Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist, Anthony Suau, critiqued a particular portfolio of mine.  Suau had photographed the Peoria (IL) Animal Welfare Shelter several years prior to me. His critique of my document on the same shelter left Suau speechless.  After earning a Master of Fine Art and venturing into photojournalism, I witnessed the execution of Nevada inmate Tom Baal more as a friend than as a photojournalist.  Singularly the most difficult task in my life was calling Baal’s parents and explaining to them why their son wanted to die.  Additionally, I grew quite fond of Tom and Georgeann Grubham, an elderly couple who lived in a broken-down school bus in the Nevada desert.  My most memorable Thanksgiving dinner was with the Grubhams in their school bus. My passion for photojournalism died with my tenure at the Reno Gazette Journal, where it became very clear honest reportage took backseat to political correctness.  I photographed a local homeless shelter. The only resident willing to be documented was an African-American gentleman. This spoke volumes about the man’s dignity and self-respect. Editors viewed the image to be somehow “offensive.” However, Baal’s story of historically untreated schizophrenia beckoned me to once again pursue Medicine. 

 

I attended medical school at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, graduating in 1997.  Psychiatry captivated my attention, because I felt the specialty nurtured the full concept of Medicine as a synthesizing art and therefore less prone to rote memory.  The patient and their full history took center stage.  

 

My view as psychiatrist was I was my patients’ advocate, their metaphoric “sheepdog” as elucidated in the film “American Sniper.”  In this capacity I was a defense witness in the both trials for the described first “self-radicalized Islamic terrorist,” Naveed Haq, who had launched an attack on Seattle’s Jewish Federation Building in 2006.

 

In my medical career neither was I ever sued, nor did any patient commit suicide.  Few of my hospitalized patients were readmitted as “bounce-backs.” Treatment of any and all patients was a team approach with patient interest taking precedence.  The patient was team captain.

 

The longer I practiced Psychiatry the more I became cognizant that my approach to patients and patient care was not shared, not appreciated by those driven by profit and lacking moral or ethical clarity.  Regarding physicians, I found that metaphoric wolves are more treasured than sheep and that true sheepdog-physicians are few and far between.

 

Recalling my deep passion for Photography, this drive was reawakened.  I returned home.

​

​