Siegel, Marc K.

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Siegel, Marc K.

PERSONAL:

Married; children: three. Education: State University of New York at Buffalo, M.D., 1985.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of General Internal Medicine, New York University, 650 1st Ave., 7th Fl., New York, NY 10016. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, clinical associate professor of medicine.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Master Scholars Society, New York University, fellow.

WRITINGS:

Bellevue (novel), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1998.

False Alarm: The Truth about the Epidemic of Fear, John Wiley (Hoboken, NJ), 2005.

Bird Flu: Everything You Need to Know about the Next Pandemic, John Wiley (Hoboken, NJ), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Slate, and Family Circle.

SIDELIGHTS:

A physician and educator, Marc K. Siegel has a particular interest in the human response to fear and how events faced by Americans in the twenty-first century have created an atmosphere of nearly perpetual fear. In 2005 Siegel published his first book on the topic, False Alarm: The Truth about the Epidemic of Fear, in which he asserts that the government and the media have played significant roles in making fear a modern way of life. Siegel contends that the focus is misplaced, as fear and paranoia can lead to stress and health problems, while diverting resources away from other much-needed areas. In Publishers Weekly, Bob Kerrey responded to the book this way: "Highly qualified and deeply motivated, Siegel has conducted an intensive and much needed study of the ramifications of living in a time of pervasive fear." The critic added: "His thorough research illuminates the biological, political, psychological and sociological facets of this important topic," concluding that the work is a "terrific and groundbreaking book."

Siegel's next book attempts to put into perspective one specific source of misinformation and fear: a potential pandemic of the avian flu. In Bird Flu: Everything You Need to Know about the Next Pandemic, Siegel cites research that found the risk of avian flu becoming transmissible between humans to be low, and that the panic incited by media coverage of the disease is unwarranted. A Publishers Weekly contributor observed that "Siegel's exemplary bedside manner makes this dose of common sense go down easy."

Siegel is also the author of the novel Bellevue, which follows the lives of a number of first-year residents at a New York City teaching hospital as they are faced with innumerable challenges.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Publishers Weekly, July 18, 2005, Bob Kerrey, review of False Alarm: The Truth about the Epidemic of Fear, p. 203; February 27, 2006, review of Bird Flu: Everything You Need to Know about the Next Pandemic, p. 53.