Oliver Sacks

From Psy3241

Childhood

Oliver Wolf Sacks is a United States based neurologist who was born in London on July 9th, 1933

to a very prosperous Jewish medical family. At age 6, Sacks’ parents sent him to a boarding

school for 4 years in the Midlands where he was to be protected from World War 2. In this time,

Sacks lived with his uncle Dave and developed an interest in chemistry. This is the time period

that Sacks’ memoir Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood reflects on.

Study of Medicine and Neurology

Oliver Sacks went on to obtain his medical degrees from Oxford University. In 1960, Sacks went on

vacation in Canada and decided to stay. Sacks hitch-hiked through the Rocky Mountains and ended

up in San Francisco, eventually moving to Los Angeles where he completed his residency in

neurology at UCLA. Then Sacks moved to the Bronx in New York where he still lives and helps

people with their neurological disorders.

Formerly, Sacks was a professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and an

adjunct professor at the New York School of Medicine for over 43 years. Recently, on September 1,

2007, Sacks became a professor of clinical neurology and clinical psychiatry at the Columbia

University College of Physicians and Surgeons. To this day, Sacks is still a consultant

neurologist to the Little Sisters of the Poor organization and continues to practice neurology in

New York City.

Books by Sacks

Oliver Sacks has a way of writing about neuropsychological disorders in layman’s terms. Sacks

uses very little clinical terms in his writing, and focuses on the experiences of the patient and

how they adapt to their disorder. By telling a story of a particular patient who exemplifies a

particular disorder, Sacks has a talent of grabbing the attention of the reader and introducing

them into a world unfamiliar to their way of life. The following are books written by Oliver Sacks

MIGRAINE (1970- revised 1992)

AWAKENINGS (1973- revised 1990)

A LEG TO STAND ON (1984)

THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT (1985)

SEEING VOICES (1989)

AN ANTHROPOLOGIST ON MARS (1995)

THE ISLAND OF THE COLORBLIND (1997)

UNCLE TUNGSTEN: MEMORIES OF A CHEMICAL BOYHOOD (2001)

OAXACA JOURNAL (2002)

MUSICOPHILIA: TALES OF MUSIC AND THE BRAIN (2007)

All of the books by Sacks are documents of his professional work in the field of neurology. He

has written from his point of view as the patient in the memoir Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a

Chemical Boyhood (2001), as well as the neurologist helping the various and interesting patients

he encounters. Additionally, Oliver Sacks also has many published essays and articles on various

neuropsychology topics aswell as a television series called The Mind Traveler.