Day 034 - 11 Oct 94 - Page 56
1 A. Yes.
2
3 Q. -- which is a combination of particular research and
4 examination, I believe. More practitioners have an MD
5 than used to, but it is a very considerable distinction
6 still to be MD or DM. It is the first medical
7 qualification in the United States, is it?
8 A. Maybe I could describe the series of events?
9
10 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, please.
11 A. The series of events briefly. All physicians follow
12 pretty much the same track. One completes a number of
13 courses in college that allow one to begin medical
14 studies. Those would include basic biology and chemistry,
15 mathematics and so forth. Then in a four-year period of
16 study after graduating from college one gets an MD
17 degree. This has to be at an approved medical university
18 of which there are 126.
19
20 Thereafter, one does a greater or a lesser degree of
21 general internship training followed by residency, but
22 more and more of those two events are integrated. A
23 residency would typically be three years or four years or
24 five years -- in my case it was four.
25
26 Q. At what point in your career is it, generally speaking,
27 likely that you would start to specialise in any
28 particular branch of medicine?
29 A. It is during the residency component.
30
31 Q. You develop an interest and maybe go down that road for
32 the rest of your career, is that right?
33 A. It is during the residency period where one
34 specialises.
35
36 Q. When did you develop your interest in psychiatry?
37 A. I think I have always had an interest in that from the
38 standpoint of what motivates people to do what they do and
39 to change their behaviour as well.
40
41 Q. When did you start to specialise in psychiatry?
42 A. I guess it was 1981.
43
44 Q. If it is not a rude question, Dr. Barnard, which it
45 probably is not, how old are you?
46 A. I am 41.
47
48 Q. 41. So when you were about in your 20s, at least anyway,
49 you started to specialise in psychiatry? Is that right?
50 A. I guess I was about 28.
51
52 Q. You have never specialised in, what shall I say, the
53 clinical study or practice of cancer, have you?
54 A. From the standpoint of taking formalised training,
55 from the standpoint of residency in cancer -- only so far
56 as it relates to psychiatry.
57
58 Q. As it relates to -- sorry, my fault?
59 A. To psychiatry. For example, one quite often sees
60 cancer patients, works out treatments for them. As you
