Sherwin B. Nuland

Sherwin B. Nuland, M.D.
Born	December 1930 Bronx, New York
Nationality	American
Fields	Surgeon; Author; Educator
Institutions	Yale University School of Medicine
Alma mater	New York University & Yale University School of Medicine
Known for	Professor of Surgery; Medical Ethicist; Historian of Medicine; Modern Philosopher

Dr. Sherwin Nuland (born December 1930) is an American surgeon and author who teaches bioethics, history of medicine, and medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine and, upon occasion, bioethics and history of medicine at Yale College. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller and National Book Award winning How We Die, and has also written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New Republic, Time, and the New York Review of Books. Perhaps his greatest work, however, is his unforgettable first-generation American autobiography of his own painful coming of age as a son of immigrants, "Lost in America: A Journey with My Father." He is both a fellow and board member of the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institution.

Biography

Nuland was born in the Bronx, New York City, in December 1930 to immigrant Jewish parents Meyer and Vitsche Nudelman. Although raised in a traditional Orthodox Jewish home, Sherwin now considers himself agnostic, but continues to attend synagogue.

Nuland is a graduate of New York University and Yale School of Medicine, where he obtained his M.D. degree and also completed a residency in surgery. He currently resides in Connecticut with his second wife Sarah. He has four children, two from each marriage. His daughter Victoria Nuland, is the former U.S. ambassador to NATO.

In a 2001 TED talk, which was released in Oct 2007, Nuland spoke of his severe depression and obsessive thoughts in the early 1970s, probably caused by his difficult childhood and the dissolution of his first marriage. As drug therapy remained ineffective, a lobotomy was planned, but his treating resident suggested electroshock therapy instead, leading to ultimate recovery.

Nuland is also one of the featured lecturers at One Day University.

In 2005, Dr. Nuland produced a series of lectures for the Teaching Company on the history of Western medicine titled Doctors: The History of Scientific Medicine Revealed Through Biography.

Books

• The Soul of Medicine (New York: Kaplan Publishing, 2009) ISBN 1607140551
• The Art of Aging: A Doctor's Prescription for Well-Being (New York: Random House, 2007) ISBN 1400064775
• The Doctors' Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003) ISBN 0393052990
• Doctors: The Biography of Medicine (New York: Knopf, 1988) ISBN 0679760091
• How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter (New York: Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 1994) ISBN 0679414614
• How We Live (New York: Vintage Books, 1998) [originally published as The Wisdom of the Body in 1997] ISBN 0099767619
• Leonardo Da Vinci (Penguin Lives) (New York: Viking, 2000) ISBN 0670893919
• Lost in America: A Journey with My Father (New York: Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 2003) ISBN 0375412948
• Maimonides (Jewish Encounters) (New York: Nextbook: Schocken, 2005) ISBN 0805242007
• Medicine: The Art of Healing (New York : Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc. : Distributed by Macmillan, 1992) ISBN 0883632926
• The Mysteries Within: A Surgeon Explores Myth, Medicine, and the Human Body (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000) ISBN 0684854864
• The Wisdom of the Body (New York: Knopf, 1997) ISBN 0679444076
• The Uncertain Art: Thoughts on a Life in Medicine (New York: Random House, 2008) ISBN 1400064783

External links

• Sherwin B. Nuland tells his life story (video)
• Interview with Nuland concerning his book Maimonides
• Sherwin Nuland's 2001 TEDTalk, on the history of electroshock therapy and his personal experience with severe depression
• Sherwin Nuland vs. Aubrey de Grey in a clip from the documentary, HOW TO LIVE FOREVER