I am originally from Illinois and moved to California in 1981 after graduating from the Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago. I completed my first two years of psychiatric training at the UCI Medical Center, the final two years at the LA County-USC Medical Center, followed by two years of a child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. Upon completing my fellowship, I worked for a year as a ward chief on a children's psychiatric unit at UCLA-NPI supervising child psychiatry fellows and providing patient care.