How I got into neuroscience and PTSD
I got interested in post traumatic stress disorder when I was just finishing my residency in psychiatry.
It was the first Gulf War and a lot of Vietnam veterans were coming out of the hills because their memories had been triggered by another war, and there was a great need for them to get treatment.
I in turn had avoided the draft at the time of the Vietnam War because I had been a doctor and we all had to do military service.
I had gone to the public health service in Bethesda, Maryland and done research in Neuroscience and so later on when I was in San Diego seeing all these Vietnam Veterans I felt like these were the veterans who went to the war that I didn’t go to, and so now I can help them.
And so it felt like a nice way I could pay back the country for giving me this training while the war was going on when I became a neuroscientist.
