Oliver Sacks
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Oliver Sacks was a British neurologist and writer who became famous for his ability to describe the experiences of people with neurological conditions in deeply human and compelling ways. His work matters because it changed how we understand the brain and nervous system by showing that behind every neurological disorder is a person with their own unique story and perspective.
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Oliver Sacks (born July 9, 1933, London) is a neurologist who has written popular books about his patients. He considers it following the tradition of 19th-century "clinical anecdotes", a literary-style that included informal case histories. <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Oliver+Sacks">Read more on Last.fm</a>
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Oliver Wolf Sacks (9 July 1933 – 30 August 2015) was a British neurologist, naturalist, historian of science, and writer.
Born in London, Sacks received his medical degree in 1958 from The Queen's College, Oxford, before moving to the United States, where he spent most of his career. He interned at Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco and completed his residency in neurology and neuropathology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Later, he served as neurologist at Beth Abraham Hospital's chronic-care facility in the Bronx, where he worked with a group of survivors of the 1920s sleeping sickness encephalitis lethargica epidemic, who had been unable to move on their own for decades. His treatment of those patients became the basis of his 1973 book Awakenings, which was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated feature film, in 1990, starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. His other best-selling books were mostly collections of case studies of people, including himself, with neurological disorders. He also published hundreds of articles (both peer-reviewed scientific articles and articles for a general audience), about neurological disorders, history of science, natural history, and nature. Journals and letters written by Sacks, but discovered after his death, indicate that some of his work was embellished or exaggerated.
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1933 births2015 deaths20th-century atheists20th-century British Jews20th-century British naturalists20th-century English LGBTQ people20th-century English medical doctors20th-century English memoirists20th-century Jewish medical doctors21st-century atheists21st-century British Jews21st-century British medical doctors