I was born in The Bronx, one of the five burroughs of New York City. I attended The Bronx High School of Science, then went to New York University to study engineering... which I didn't do too well. My excuse was that I was distracted. It was the late 60's, after all. Following a period of working at various interesting jobs (Yellow Cab driver in Manhattan, motorcycle messenger with the Cosmic Messenger Service in Manhattan, assistant to the foreman in a plastics injection-molding factory in The Bronx, yacht-yard hand in Westchester, and probably some others) and an interesting lifestyle (Hippie in a commune of sorts) I decided to go back to college. I made Bronx Community College my next try, and did very well. Next I received my BA in psychology at Adelphi University on Long Island in Garden City, New York. I attended medical school (College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersy, Rutgers Medical School, which is now the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School), did an internship in surgery, paid the army back some time, and eventually completed a residency in General Preventive Medicine and Public Health.
Along the way I was also the guy who started up the "Ask the Doctor" section on CompuServe's Human Sexuality forum ("HSX"). I also served as the State Patrol Surgeon for the state highway patrol. I wrote a number of articles for Law and Order magazine.
I'm still a liberal, FWIW.