1. BestDoctors.com: Mark S. Gold, M.D.
Tuesday, October 25th 2005 Site Map Language Search
Condition Summaries
Doctor Is In™
Mark S. Gold, M.D.
What Is The Biggest Misperception
About Drug And Alcohol Use?
How Far Have We Come In Looking
At Addictions As A Disease Rather
Than A Behavioral Problem?
How Do You Diagnose Alcohol
Abuse?
What Is The Typical Course Of
Treatment For Alcohol Abuse?
What Are Some Of The Factors That
Go Into Successful Treatment Of
Alcohol Abuse?
What Do You Tell Alcohol Abuse
Patients About Relapse?
Do You Recommend Any Alternative
Therapies For Alcohol Abuse
Treatment?
What Is The Most Important Thing
People Should Understand About
Drug Or Alcohol Abuse?
Dr. Mark S. Gold
Psychiatry
University of Florida College of Medicine
Gainesville, Florida
How did you first get interested in your specialty?
As a medical student at the University of Florida, I was given the opportunity to teach
neuroscience and neuroanatomy. I received support from medical student research
fellowships to begin my research career and worked in a lab that was looking at the effects
of certain brain chemicals on sleep and memory.
I explored the relationships between stress and memory, drugs of abuse and memory, and
also brain stimulation and lesions. That work on brain systems and sleep and memory led
me to wonder how narcotic drugs such as heroin or morphine worked in the brain and
where the brain location was for narcotic action and withdrawal.
What do you like about your specialty?
I've had the chance to study and make contributions to the understanding of a variety of
drugs of abuse: how they cause addiction, how they might be effectively treated, and I
have published extensively from this work.
What I like most about what I do is that I can apply what I know about neuroanatomy and
the way brain systems work to develop theories for how drugs of abuse might work in the
brain. This includes how they might change brain function and human behavior. I then try
to develop strategies to help people who want to become drug free.
What is your favorite success story?
My favorite success story is a professor who rode a bike to the clinic and was presented to
me as someone with depression and memory loss. I asked the resident why he was riding
a bike for three miles, but they hadn't asked. It turned out that he had lost his license for
driving under the influence.
So the patient had misrepresented his history as a depression. As we went on, he brought
in his spouse and we worked with her. She and the children supported his treatment by
going to meetings themselves and he also went to meetings.
His so-called depression disappeared with no anti-depressant treatment by the third week.
He not only went to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings, but became one of the premier
local sponsors in helping other members of the academic community gain and maintain
sobriety.
http://www.bestdoctors.com/en/askadoctor/g/gold/msgold_061900.htm (1 of 2)10/25/2005 6:07:41 AM
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