Physician Drew Pinsky, host of the nightly show Dr. Drew On Call on cable television network HLN, will deliver a talk, “When Painkillers Become Dangerous,” Thursday, March 20, at 7:30 p.m. at Vanderbilt University in the Student Life Center’s ballroom.
The event is free and open to the public and is the final event for the 2013-14 Project Dialogue series, which is dedicated to creating opportunities for students, staff and faculty to engage in public discourse and dialogue in an effort to foster a transformative experience. By connecting classroom learning with larger societal issues, Project Dialogue seeks to generate reasonable debate in the hopes of finding common ground.
Pinsky is a practicing physician and is board certified in internal medicine and addiction medicine. He is a member of the staff at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, Calif., and an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the Keck USC School of Medicine.
He joined the HLN television network in December 2010 and continues to host the nationally syndicated radio show Loveline, where he has been taking calls from listeners about love, sex and relationships for more than 25 years. He hosts the Dr. Drew Podcast, which is currently the No. 1 podcast on iTunes for health and wellness, and co-hosts the Adam and Dr. Drew podcast with his former Loveline co-host Adam Carolla.
Pinsky starred in the hit reality series Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, which chronicled the struggle for sobriety and the cycle of addictive disorders among a group of celebrities. The sixth installment of the series, Rehab with Dr. Drew, followed the experiences of everyday people who are struggling with addiction as they undergo detoxification and treatment.
The author of the New York Times bestseller The Mirror Effect: How Celebrity Narcissism is Seducing America and Cracked: Putting Broken Lives Together Again, Pinsky co-wrote the first academic study on celebrities and narcissism. The study was published in the Journal of Research in Personality and received worldwide news coverage. He is currently working on his next book, Recovering Intimacy.
Pinsky received his undergraduate degree from Amherst College and his M.D. from the University of Southern California School of Medicine. He remained at USC for his residency. He then became chief resident at Huntington Hospital. He is a diplomat of the American Board of Addiction Medicine and the American Board of Internal Medicine. He has been appointed to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and is a fellow with the American College of Physicians (FACP).