DR. AMEN’S EARLY YEARS

In 1972, Dr. Daniel Amen joined the US Army and was trained as an infantry medic where his love of medicine was born. After about 18 months, he was retrained as an X-ray technician and developed a passion for medical imaging. As his professors used to say, “How do you know unless you look?”

UNDERGRADUATE & GRADUATE DEGREES

University of Maryland, West Germany Campus, 1974–1975

Orange Coast College, Associates of Arts Degree, 1975–1976

Southern California College (now Vanguard University), Bachelor of Arts Degree, 1976–1978

Oral Roberts University, Doctor of Medicine Degree, 1978–1982.

MEDICAL RESIDENCY

Daniel G. Amen, MD completed his medical residency at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and he has loved being a psychiatrist every day for the past 40 years. Some of the therapies he still uses today at Amen Clinics are ones he first used at Walter Reed and at Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert.

POST-GRADUATE TRAINING HIGHLIGHTS

Child, Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship, 1985–1987, Tripler Army Medical Center, Hawaii

Nuclear Brain Imaging Independent Fellowship Study, 1991–1995, including 200 hours of nuclear physics and related science at the Institute for Nuclear Medical Education and 1,000 hours of clinically supervised training, leading to a California nuclear brain imaging license.

AMEN CLINICS OPENING

Dr. Amen opened the first Amen Clinics location on July 5, 1989, in the San Francisco Bay Area. This clinic marked the beginning of what would become Amen Clinics, a network specializing in brain health and functional brain imaging.

RESEARCH

With more than 95 peer-reviewed scientific papers, Daniel G. Amen, MD has helped reshape how clinicians understand and treat the brain. As lead researcher on the largest brain-imaging and rehabilitation study of professional football players, he uncovered both the severity of brain damage in athletes and their capacity for recovery using his core principles. His landmark analysis of over 21,000 brain scans—distinguishing PTSD from TBI with unprecedented accuracy was honored as one of Discover Magazine’s Top 100 Science Stories of 2015.

PERSONAL LIFE

Dr. Amen is married to bestselling author Tana Amen, BSN, RN. He is the father of six children and has five grandchildren—Elias, Emmy, Liam, Louie, and Haven. He is also an avid table tennis player.