— MEET JOHN KRUSE
Dr. Kruse grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, where he received an excellent public school education, and won national honors in writing, math, and Latin. As a youth, his joy and curiosity about the natural world were honed by participating in the Future Scientist program at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and working at Camp Blue Heron, in northern Ontario. Banding wild birds brought him up close to the beauty, fragility, and resilience of life.
After graduating Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from the University of Rochester in three years, he remained in Rochester to complete his medical degree and to earn a Ph.D. in neuroscience with a dissertation on circadian rhythms, garnering awards for his research and writing. While at Rochester he also helped design early research using bright light to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder, and assisted in launching The Journal of the University of Rochester Medical Center.
He moved to San Francisco in 1990, completing a psychiatry residency at UCSF and receiving an Outstanding Resident in Psychiatry award from the National Institute of Mental Health.
Dr. Kruse realized that his strength as a psychiatrist lay in his ability to think about and help individuals with mental health conditions at multiple levels, ranging from brain chemistry and circuitry, to whole body health, to intra-psychic, interpersonal and socio-political aspects. Since 2022 he has been living and practicing on the Big Island of Hawaii. In addition to direct patient care, he taught basic psychopharmacology to psychotherapy interns for 25 years, and has spoken at local, state, and national psychiatry conferences about gay marriage, gay families, and the biology of emotions. In 2022 the American Psychiatric Association honored him as a Distinguished Life Fellow.
Dr. Kruse has specialized in working with adults with ADHD for almost thirty years. When Donald Trump burst onto the national political scene during the 2016 election, many of Dr. Kruse’s patients saw their ADHD-driven actions reflected in Mr. Trump. They urged Dr. Kruse to write about this public display of ADHD symptoms, hoping it would help others to recognize and understand this condition. Dr. Kruse’s book addresses how ADHD is diagnosed and treated, including practical and ethical considerations, and the impact ADHD has not just on individuals with the condition, but on families, partners, and co-workers. He also addresses a multitude of ways our modern world pushes all of us to behave in more ADHD-like ways.
Publishing his book rekindled Dr. Kruse’s interest in writing. He has written two hundred articles on medium.com and has been honored as a Top Writer in Health, and a Top Writer in Mental Health. In addition, thousands of viewers have been learning from and enjoying the twenty minute videos (more than one hundred of them) on his YouTube channel.
When he’s not treating patients, John is an avid runner, having completed more than a few marathons (if ninety-nine is a few), as well as coaching several hundred novice runners to complete their first marathons. In addition to having been president of the San Francisco FrontRunners, and holding other officer roles, he served for a decade as editor and columnist for their monthly newsletter, The FootPrint. John and his husband are parents of thriving college age twins. He continues to enjoy birdwatching, nature photography, gardening, and baking.
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If you want to keep track of Dr. Kruse’s efforts to educate the public about adult ADHD, and in particular, Mr. Trump’s ADHD, and receive a FREE copy of the rough draft of Chapter 3 ("THE FORMAL DSM-5 CRITERIA FOR ADHD - TRUMP SCORES BIGLY"), please sign up for the newsletter. It will also keep you updated about the pending publication of Recognizing Adult ADHD: What Donald Trump Can Teach Us About Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, currently slated for publication in the spring-summer of 2019.