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Drew Pinsky

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Drew Pinsky
Pinsky in January 2007.
Born
David Drew Pinsky
Career
ShowLoveline
StationKROQ-FM
NetworkWestwood One
ShowCelebrity Rehab
Sex Rehab
Sober House
NetworkVH1
MTV
CountryUnited States

David Drew Pinsky, M.D. (born September 4, 1958[1]), better known as Dr. Drew, is an American radio and television personality and board-certified internist and addiction medicine specialist. He is the host of the nationally syndicated radio talk show, Loveline, which he has hosted since 1984. On television he produces and hosts the VH1 show Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, its sibling shows Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew and Sober House, and the MTV show Sex...With Mom and Dad.

As a medical doctor, Pinsky is Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, Medical Director for the Department of Chemical Dependency Services at Las Encinas Hospital in Pasadena, California, staff member at Huntington Memorial Hospital, and a private practitioner.[2]

Early life

Pinsky was born in Pasadena, California and attended Polytechnic School. His father, Morton Pinsky (1925-2009), was a physician; his mother, Helene Stanton (1925-), is a retired singer and actress. He majored in biology at Amherst College, graduating in 1980,[3] and earned his M.D. at the University of Southern California School of Medicine in 1984.[4] He served his residency at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, and eventually became chief resident there before moving into private practice. Pinsky married in 1991, and he and his wife Susan had triplets Douglas, Jordan, and Paulina in 1992.

Career

My goal was always to be part of pop culture and relevant to young people, to interact with the people they hold in high esteem.

— Dr. Drew Pinsky, The New York Times, February 2008.[5]

As The New York Times described it in February 2008, Pinsky's dual career in medicine and the mass media has required him to "navigat[e] a precarious balance of professionalism and salaciousness."[5]

Loveline

Main article: Loveline

In 1984, while still a medical student, Pinsky started appearing in "Ask a Surgeon", a new segment of a Sunday night KROQ show hosted by Jim "Poorman" Trenton and "Swedish" Egil Aalvik.[6] "Ask the Surgeon" soon combined with "Loveline", another Sunday night segment, into a show of its own, co-hosted by Trenton and Pinsky.

Loveline went national in 1995, and the television version launched on MTV the following year, hosted by Pinsky and Adam Carolla. The exposure on both radio and television made Pinsky the "Gen-X answer to Dr. Ruth Westheimer, with an AIDS-era, pro-safe-sex message."[5]

The MTV show ran for four years, while the radio show continues on today. (without Carolla, who left the show in 2005)

Other radio work

On November 27, 2007, Pinsky began Dr. Drew Live, another nationally syndicated talk radio show where he focused on a wider genre of health issues. It originated from KGIL in Los Angeles, originally airing weekdays from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm PT [7] Although the show was canceled in December, 2008, as of February 28, 2009 the show's website is still up and old shows can still be downloaded and listened to via the website.

Other television work

In addition to his radio show and medical career, Pinsky also has gained fame on television talk shows. He served as "health and human relations expert" on the first season of the U.S. TV series Big Brother in 2000. He has also hosted his own television series, Strictly Sex with Dr. Drew, on the Discovery Health Channel, which was followed by Strictly Dr. Drew. The newer program addressed everyday health issues, premiered on July 25, 2006, and continues to air weekly on Tuesdays at 7:00 pm PT.

In 2008, Pinsky starred in Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, a reality television show which involves celebrities in a drug rehabilitation facility. The show was filmed at Pasadena Recovery Center, with Pinsky serving as the resident medical expert. The series premiered January 10, 2008 on VH-1, and has been renewed for multiple seasons. A followup show to Celebrity Rehab with many of the same celebrities was Sober House, which began its first season in January 2009, and included celebrities from the first two seasons of Celebrity Rehab continuing their recovery in a sober living facility.[8]

Pinsky also appears on the MTV series Sex...with Mom and Dad.

Pinsky makes frequent guest appearances on a variety of news programs where he usually gives his observations on the relationship between controlled substances and high-profile individuals. He has frequently given his views on the deaths of people such as Anna Nicole Smith, Heath Ledger and Michael Jackson, arguing that their fates should set examples of the seriousness of misusing drugs.[9]

In late 2009, Pinsky starred in a new reality series on VH-1, "Sex Rehab with Dr.Drew". Patients included members of the sex industry, and other celebrities dealing with sexual addiction, described as serious and potentially as fatal as drug or alcohol addiction. The rehab program took place over three weeks at the Pasadena Recovery Center.

Other work

Pinsky's $20 donation for paint gave him one of the thousands of producer credits for The 1 Second Film.[10]

In 2003, Pinsky authored Cracked: Putting Broken Lives Together Again, recounting his experiences as the Medical Director of the Department of Chemical Dependency Services at the Las Encinas Hospital drug rehabilitation clinic in Pasadena, California. He also contributed to the book When Painkillers Become Dangerous: What Everyone Needs to Know About OxyContin and Other Prescription Drugs, published in 2004.

Pinsky speaks at college and university campuses throughout the United States, on his own and, previously, with his former Loveline partner Adam Carolla.

Amid the dot-com boom, Pinsky co-founded an Internet-based community and advice site for teenagers called DrDrew.com with Curtis Giesen. Among their early backers was Garage.com.[11] DrDrew.com soon ran out of funding, and the company was sold to Sherwood Partners Inc., a corporate restructuring firm, which sold the remnants to DrKoop.com in November 2000.[12] Pinsky refrained from any affiliation with the site, though the site hosted articles he wrote in 2000-2001. In early 2009, Dr. Drew regained control over the domain name with intention of developing a new site.

Career as actor

Dr. Drew Pinsky made his official acting debut when he appeared on the TV show Space Ghost Coast to Coast ("Terminal", 1998), followed by Dawson's Creek. Other TV appearances in which he did not appear as himself include Family Guy (billed as "Dr. Drew"), The Adam Carolla Project, Minoriteam, Robot Chicken, My Gym Partner's a Monkey, and Code Monkeys. Dr. Drew has also been in the films New York Minute and Wild Hogs.

Honors

Asteroid 4536 Drewpinsky is named in his honor.[13]

Dr. Drew was honored with the Larry Stewart Leadership and Inspiration Award at the 12th Annual PRISM Awards in 2008.[14]

Credentials

Personal life

Pinsky lives in Pasadena, California. In addition to his hobby of traveling,[6] Pinsky stated on a June 24, 2009 episode of Loveline that at one point, he was torn between practicing medicine and becoming a professional opera singer.[15] Dr. Drew stated that he auditioned for a celebrity singing show, but that the show passed on his appearing when he made it clear to producers that he could not sing pop songs, but was a trained operatic singer.

Pinsky's father, Morton, died suddenly of a brain bleed on October 27, 2009.[16] A title card at the end of the season 3 finale of Celebrity Rehab dedicated the episode to him.

Criticism and praise

Pinsky has drawn criticism from experts for publicly offering diagnoses of celebrities has never met or personally examined, based on media accounts, and has also drawn the ire of some of those celebrities. Following comments Pinsky made about actor Tom Cruise's belief in Scientology and Lindsay Lohan's drug abuse, Cruise's lawyer compared Pinsky to Joseph Goebbels, and Lohan posted on Twitter, "I thought REAL doctors talked to patients in offices behind closed doors."[17] Pinsky, who admits in his 2009 book, The Mirror Effect, that he scored a 16 on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (average is 18 for celebrities), and shares several traits with the "closet narcissist", asserts that he was never motivated by fame to become a media figure, but from a desire to educate the public on the medical facts distorted by the media. He has been praised by those he has treated, including Rehab alums Duncan Roy and Andy Dick. Dick, who has made Pinsky his primary care physician, disputes the accusation that Pinsky is motivated by a desire for fame, insisting that Pinsky "really is just this unbelievably caring guy. He really is. He’s almost too caring."[18]

Defending the practice of paying addicts to attend rehab, producer Pinsky says, "My whole thing is bait and switch. Whatever motivates them to come in, that’s fine. Then we can get them involved with the process."[19]

Filmography

Published work

Journal publications

  • Pinsky, Drew (2006). "Narcissism and celebrity". Journal of Research in Personality. 40 (5): 463–471. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2006.05.005. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Noll AM, Pinsky D (1991). "Withdrawal effects of metoclopramide". West. J. Med. 154 (6): 726–8. PMC 1002885. PMID 1877215. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

Books

  • Pinsky, Dr. Drew (July 2004). When Painkillers Become Dangerous: What Everyone Needs to Know about OxyContin and Other Prescription Drugs. New York: Hazelden Publishing & Educational Services. ISBN 1-59285-107-X. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Pinsky, Dr. Drew (September 2003). Cracked: Putting Broken Lives Together Again. New York: Regan Books. ISBN 0-06-009655-1.
  • Pinsky, Dr. Drew (1998-10-13). The Dr. Drew and Adam Book: A Survival Guide To Life and Love. New York: Dell. ISBN 0-440-50836-3. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Neinstein, Lawrence S. (2002). "Approaches to Management of Drug Abuse". Adolescent health care: a practical guide (4th ed.). Hagerstwon, MD: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. ISBN 0-7817-2897-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Pinsky, Dr. Drew (March 2009). The Mirror Effect: How Celebrity Narcissism Is Seducing America. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-158233-6. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

References

  1. ^ California Birth Index, 1905-1995. Center for Health Statistics, California Department of Health Services, Sacramento, California. At Ancestry.com
  2. ^ USC Study: Celebrities Really Are More Narcissistic than the General Public
  3. ^ a b Amherst Magazine > Archives > Fall/Winter 2006 > College Row from the Amherst College website
  4. ^ a b "Medical Board of California, License Holder". Retrieved February 6, 2009.
  5. ^ a b c Detox for the Camera. Doctor’s Order!, a February 2008 article in The New York Times
  6. ^ a b About the Show from the Loveline website
  7. ^ "On the radio: Dr. Drew Pinsky adds KGIL to his practice", Orange County Register, November 22, 2007
  8. ^ TVMaven.com
  9. ^ National Ledger
  10. ^ Dr. Drew Pinsky: $20.00 from the website of the The 1 Second Film
  11. ^ E-Commerce News: News: Heavyweight Investors Back Loveline's Doctor Drew from ecommercetimes.com
  12. ^ InternetNews Realtime IT News – Is drkoop.com Out of Sick Bay for Good? from internetnews.com
  13. ^ JPL Small-Body Database Browser from the NASA website
  14. ^ 12th Annual PRISM awards from the Entertainment Industries Council, Inc. website
  15. ^ Loveline broadcast, June 24, 2009. As heard on KROQ radio, Los Angeles.
  16. ^ Norris, Chris. "Hitting Bottom"; The New York Times, December 30, 2009; Page 5 of 6
  17. ^ Norris; 2009; Page 6 of 6
  18. ^ Norris, 2009; Page 5 of 6
  19. ^ Norris. 2009; Page 4 of 6
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