Some Background Information About Me

I have lived in the City since 1981, in a variety of neighborhoods. Currently I live in Meadowbrook Heights. I love the natural beauty of our area, the vibrant artistic, cultural, and intellectual life of our community, and the generally friendly and decent tone we all set with one another.
Work Background:
I cam here to attend medical school, and chose to stay as I loved the area. I have worked for the Commonwealth since 1987 at Western State Hospital. I started there as the psychiatrist for deaf people admitted to the hospital, and I still take care of them. Now I also take care of people who hear. I consider myself fortunate to have been able to work in sign language, as I find it a very rich experience. At the hospital I was on the Medical Executive Committee for 13 years, which enabled me to participate in the administration of the hospital. I spent a year or two working part time at Valley Community Services Board, a sister organization to our Region Ten. This afforded me a 'street level view' of how valiantly folks struggle to get through their daily lives while trying to manage very serious illnesses. I have been on a statewide Advisory Council for Mental Health Services for hearing impaired persons. For 17 years, I was at UVA's Student Health an afternoon a week, providing psychiatric services to students. I am on the clinical faculty at UVA and work with residents and medical students. For a time I worked with the Charlottesville Association of Retarded Citizens. I consulted for years at Central Virginia Training Center in Lynchburg. I have also been on the Board of Worksource Enterprises. I am very familiar with how hard it is to find services for people with disabilities. Compared to some Community Service Boards, Region Ten has done a very good job of trying to address some of the unmet needs for housing and day programming for this group of people, as has the ARC. I have done forensic psychiatric work, largely with capital murder defendants. I am a member of various professional organizations and have chaired national committees of these organizations. I have been President of the local branch of the State Psychiatric Society.
Personal:
I grew up 'in the sixties' and that climate shaped my sense of the world, politically and environmentally [and musically]. I was raised in a military family and for years I attended parochial schools, which imbued in me an appreciation for the role of discipline in the classroom- or shall I say, a concern for the absence of discipline in classrooms and how that can impact the learning climate?
I have hosted several foreign exchange students over the years. My current companion animals are two rescue dogs. I like cooking, ballroom dancing, swimming and biking. I shop at the City Market weekly. I remember when the C & O was just about the only place to go for a nice dinner out. Heck, I remember folks telling me when I moved here about the drive in movie theater that used to be where Kroger now sits.
Some of the local and regional groups I have supported include the Free Clinic, the Salvation Army, the Food Bank, International Rescue Committee, Caring for Creatures, Voices for Animals, various SPCA's, Building Goodness Foundation, The Raymond Ford Haitian Orphanage, Rivanna Conservation Society, Southern Environmental Law Center, Legal Aid and Justice, Sierra Club of Virginia.
I value civility, generativity, and maturity in politics [and elsewhere, of course]. And a sense of humor and perspective go a long way.