Google honours Dr Herbert Kleber who pioneered Modern Addiction Psychiatry

Bhubaneswar(01/10/2019): Google has honoured the incredible work of Dr Herbert David Kleber, who pioneered addiction psychology, with a Doodle on the 23rd anniversary of his election to the National Academy of Medicine.

Dr Kleber, a renowned American psychiatrist and substance abuse researcher, passed away last year. Born on June 19, 1934 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Dr Kleber attended Dartmouth College, where he studied pre-med and discovered his passion in psychology.

However, his life’s mission began only after he was assigned to the Public Health Service Prison Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, upon completing his psychiatric residency at Yale University. The American psychiatrist never viewed addiction as a moral failure unlike his contemporaries.

Rather, he believed addiction to be a condition that could only be treated through research, medication and therapy. That addiction needs a new, scientifically-backed approach for successful treatment dawned upon him during his days as a doctor in a jail in Kentucky. On October 01 in 1996, Dr Kleber was elected to be a member of the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science. .