Gordon Livingston, M.D.

Dr. Livingston was born in Memphis, Tenn. and raised in upstate New York. He attended the U.S. Military Academy and upon graduation as an infantry officer was trained as a parachutist and an Army Ranger. He served for two years in the 82nd Airborne Division before attending medical school at Johns Hopkins, from which he graduated in 1967. He interned at Walter Reed General Hospital before volunteering for Vietnam, where he served as the Regimental Surgeon for the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. He was awarded the Bronze Star for valor. While in Vietnam he registered a public protest against the war and subsequently left the army. He trained in adult and child psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, where he is now a part-time Assistant Professor. He is a parent twice bereaved and his first book, Only Spring, described the death from leukemia of his 6-year-old son. He is the author of the bestseller, Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart, which has been translated into 22 languages. His most recent book on the subjects of fear and courage, The Thing You Think You Cannot Do, has just been published. His work has appeared in a variety of magazines and newspapers, including the Readers Digest, the San Francisco Examiner, the Washington Post, and the Baltimore Sun. He is the father of four grown children and lives with his wife Clare in Columbia, M.D., where he continues to practice psychiatry.