Vancouver-based medical maverick Dr. Michael Klein has released an autobiography, Dissident Doctor: Catching Babies and Challenging the Medical Status Quo, describing his five decades in medicine.
Klein graduated from medical school at Stanford University in 1966, doing practical training in pediatrics and maternity care in Mexico and Ethiopia, before fleeing to Montreal with his wife Bonnie Sherr Klein to avoid being drafted in the Vietnam War.
After heading the department of family medicine at McGill University for 17 years, Klein was appointed head of the department of family practice at B.C. Children’s and Women’s Hospital where he remained for 10 years. He is known for his advocacy of midwifery and doulas, of family-friendly birthing practices and groundbreaking research that helped reduce unnecessary episiotomies and epidurals, all of which led to critical rethinks on unnecessary medical interventions during childbirth.
His family includes highly accomplished son Seth, until recently, the director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, and daughter Naomi, a high profile social activist and author. Klein also has a daughter, Misha, from a first marriage.
