Google doodle honours Dr. Herbert Kleber’s work in addiction treatment

Google honored Dr. Hebert David Kleber for his incredible work on addiction treatment. Google celebrated the 23rd anniversary of his election to the National Academy Medicine with a Google doodle on October 1. Dr. Kleber was a renowned American psychiatrist who was known for his research in substance abuse. He was assigned to the Public Health Service Prison in Lexington, Kentucky where thousands of inmates were being treated for addiction. The doctor supposedly described his nursing method as an evidence-based treatment and instead of shaming the patients, he carefully used medication and therapeutic communities to help the patients so that they can recover faster and avoid relapse. 

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Dr. Kleber's  career

Dr. Kleber studied pre-med from Dartmouth College. He had founded and headed the Drug Dependence Unit at Yale University, where he was also the Professor of Psychiatry. While serving at the prison hospital, he noticed that the majority of patients would relapse after release and during that time he developed his evidence-based treatment and supposedly treated addiction as a medical condition instead of a failure of moral character. In 1989, he was also appointed by President George HW Bush to serve as deputy director for Demand Reduction at the Office of National Drug Control Policy. During his career, he authored approximately 250 papers an articles on addiction and how to treat it. He was also the co-editor of the American Psychiatric Press Textbook of Substance Abuse Treatment with that he mentored generations of researchers who would lead the substance abuse field. 

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An optimist

Dr. Herbert Kleber was born on June 19, 1934 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and passed away on October 05, 2018. He and his wife Dr. Marian W Fischman also established the Division on Substance Abuse at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, which later became one of the largest and most successful research programs on substance abuse in the country. The doctor reportedly also implemented policies that led to a decreased demand for illegal drugs through programs in prevention, education, and treatment. He had dedicated approximately five decades to the field of addiction treatment. He once remarked that he is an optimist and his optimism and tireless commitment to treating addicts is credited with saving numerous lives. 

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