Steven Berk

Steven L. Berk, M.D., is dean of the Texas Tech School of Medicine and provost of Texas Tech Health Sciences Center. As a physician certified in infectious disease and geriatrics, Berk has treated an outstanding diversity of patients in his forty-year medical career.

His upcoming book, "Anatomy of a Kidnapping: A Doctor's Story," details how a career as a physician prepared him for the most dangerous moments in his life: a four-hour abduction by a meth-addict kidnapper.

This story is not just about a kidnapping. It is a story about patients, about physicians, and about what each experience has taught Berk about life and death, mistakes, family, the practice of medicine, and the physician-patient relationship. It is a story about how Berk's profession prepared him for an unpredictable situation and how any doctor must address life's uncertainties.