THE MIND: PEOPLE I HAVE CONTACTED

• David Spiegel, M.D. of Stanford University - One of the leading experts on the connection between mind and body in healing. He has done widely-recognized work on the effects of hypnosis on cancer patients' recovery.
  
  
• V.S. Ramachandran, M.D., Ph.D., Director of UC San Diego's Center for Brain and Cognition - He was a member of Newsweek Magazine's Century Club, signifying him as one of the "hundred most prominent people to watch in the next century." He was also chosen out of countless neuroscientists to give the Decade of the Brain lecture at the Society for Neuroscience. I had the privelege of meeting with him during my trip out west in 2000 when we stopped in San Diego.
  
  
• George Thompson, M.D. - Now the residency director at University of Missouri at Kansas City, I talked with Dr. Thompson first when I was considering attending Menninger Clinic in Kansas for psychiatry residency. At the time, Menninger was the last of its breed, a psychiatric program still dedicated to a holistic view of the patient and which eschewed the overuse of medication so common today. Unfortunately, Menninger was unable to remain economically viable in this new world of mental health and was forced to merge with Baylor's program the very year I was considering attending. This changed its philosophy and Dr. Thompson left shortly after. He remains one of the psychiatrists who sets an example by considering the patient as a whole person, not simply a "chemical disorder". Menninger's restructuring remains symbolic to me of the ultimate breakdown of the psychiatric field into one almost completely driven by economics and drug companies, rather than by concern for patients' mental health.
  
  
• David Galin, M.D. of University of California San Francisco - I strongly considered moving out to San Francisco in 2000 to work with Dr. Galin. His research interests include "The nature of wholeness in a person, Person, self and “I” and Rehabilitating the concept of “Spirit” for the scientifically-minded". He speaks and writes a great deal about the nature of consciousness and the link between the brain and the conscious experience of one's self.
  
  Interests Involving the Mind | Main Interests Page