Leonard Shlain (August 28, 1937 – May 11, 2009) was an American

surgeon In modern medicine, a surgeon is a medical professional who performs surgery. Although there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon usually is also a licensed physician or received the same medical training as ...

, writer, and inventor. He was chairperson of

laparoscopic surgery Laparoscopy () is an operation performed in the abdomen or pelvis using small incisions (usually 0.5–1.5 cm) with the aid of a camera. The laparoscope aids diagnosis or therapeutic interventions with a few small cuts in the abdomen.Medl ...

at the

California Pacific Medical Center Sutter Health California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) is a general medical/surgical and teaching hospital in San Francisco, California. It was created by a merger of some of the city's longest established hospitals and currently operates three ac ...

in San Francisco, and was an

associate professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. Overview In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a ...

of surgery at

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It cond ...

. His books include ''Art & Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light'' (1991), '' The Alphabet Versus the Goddess'' (1998), ''Sex, Time and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution'' (2003), and ''Leonardo's Brain: Understanding da Vinci's Creative Genius'' (2014).

Biography

Shlain was a native of

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

who graduated from high school at the age of 15. After attending the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, he earned an MD from

Wayne State University School of Medicine The Wayne State University School of Medicine (WSUSOM) is the medical school of Wayne State University, a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It enrolls more than 1,500 students in undergraduate medical education, master's degree, Ph ...

at the age of 23. He served in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

as a

military base A military base is a facility directly owned and operated by or for the military or one of its branches that shelters military equipment and personnel, and facilitates training and operations. A military base always provides accommodations for ...

doctor in Saumur, France. Prior to his internship at UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion in San Francisco, he worked for a short time at

Bellevue Hospital Bellevue Hospital (officially NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue and formerly known as Bellevue Hospital Center) is a hospital in New York City and the oldest public hospital in the United States. One of the largest hospitals in the United States b ...

in New York City.I served in the US Army in Saumur, France with Dr. Leonard Shlain –Lowell McFarland He also contributed to

Academic Press Academic Press (AP) is an academic book publisher founded in 1941. It was acquired by Harcourt, Brace & World in 1969. Reed Elsevier bought Harcourt in 2000, and Academic Press is now an imprint of Elsevier. Academic Press publishes reference ...

' ''Encyclopedia of Creativity'' (1999), edited by Mark Runco and Steven Pritzker.

Personal life

Shlain had three children with Carole Lewis Jaffe:

Kimberly Brooks Kimberly D. Brooks (née Lawson) is an American voice actress who works in the voice-over, film, video games, and theatre industry. She has voiced in video games since the mid-1990s. She has played Ashley Williams in the ''Mass Effect'' serie ...

(who is married to actor/comedian

Albert Brooks Albert Brooks (born Albert Lawrence Einstein ; July 22, 1947) is an American actor and filmmaker. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for 1987's '' Broadcast News'' and was widely praised for his performance as a ...

), Jordan L. Shlain, and

Tiffany Shlain Tiffany Shlain (born April 8, 1970) is an American filmmaker and author. Described by the public radio program ''On Being'' as "an internet pioneer", Shlain is the co-founder of the Webby Awards and the founder of the International Academy of Dig ...

, filmmaker and founder of the

Webby Award The Webby Awards are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories include ...

s. After he and Carole divorced, Shlain met and married his second wife, Superior Court Judge Ina Levin Gyemant. They lived in

Mill Valley, California Mill Valley is a city in Marin County, California, Marin County, California, United States, located about north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge and from Napa Valley. The population was 14,231 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 ...

where he died on May 11, 2009 (at age 71) after a year long struggle with

brain cancer A brain tumor occurs when abnormal cells form within the brain. There are two main types of tumors: malignant tumors and benign (non-cancerous) tumors. These can be further classified as primary tumors, which start within the brain, and secondar ...

. The film '' Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death & Technology'' (2011), directed by Shlain's daughter Tiffany, is in part a portrait of him.

References

External links

Audio interview with Leonard Shlain

Leonard Shlain biodata

Leonard Shlain biodata
in Science News article

on what the alphabet engenders {{DEFAULTSORT:Shlain, Leonard 1937 births 2009 deaths 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century surgeons American surgeons Cultural historians Medical educators People from Mill Valley, California University of California, San Francisco faculty University of Michigan alumni Writers from Detroit Writers from the San Francisco Bay Area Deaths from brain cancer in the United States Deaths from cancer in California

Biography

Personal life

See also

References

External links