Medicine and Allied Professions

Adler-Collins, Je Kan

Adler-Collins was the child of a military family who was taken into care at the age of three when his mother shot his father during a domestic dispute. He was abused in care for years, but ... [more]

for California

Bijani, Laden & Laleh

Laden and Laleh Bijani were born joined at the head, to a poor farming family in Shiraz, Iran. The family had 11 children and were unable to care for them. They remained in hospital for som... [more]

Brickley, James

Brickley's mother died when he was four and he was physically and emotionally abused by his step-mother for years. When he was 10 his father discovered the abuse and he was placed with his ... [more]

Cardozo, Abraham

Cardozo was a member of a Portuguese Marrano family. (The Marranos are the Jews of Spain and Portugal who involuntarily converted to Christianity in the 14th century and later, many of whom... [more]

Diamond, Jeff

Diamond was born in London but his parents died during World War II, and he was adopted aged five by a white Welsh family - the first Black person ever seen by many people in his new villag... [more]

Eastman, Charles Alexander

Eastman (his maternal grandfather's surname) was born Ohiyesa, the last of five children. His mother died soon after he was born. In 1862, after the Minnesota Sioux uprising he escaped with... [more]

Ellison, Edward Pohau

Ellison was descended on both sides from Maori chiefs and also from English whalers and farmers. He was the 11th of 12 children, and was given to his father's cousin Harirota Eyes and her h... [more]

Estés, Clarissa Pinkola

Estés was born to a Mestizo (Native American-Hispanic) couple but adopted as an older child by a family of Hungarian refugee immigrants to America. She is a Ph.D. and a Jungian psychoana... [more]

Kereluk, Cynthia

Kereluk, who was Miss Canada in 1984, is the Canadian counterpart to the British Mr. Motivator (Derrick Evans), with a daily slot on television since 1985, and she also has a daily radio sl... [more]

Kutner, Lawrence

Kutner is a graduate of Oberlin College and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a syndicated columnist, broadcaster and author of five books on child care: Pregnancy and Your... [more]

Lifton, Betty Jean

Lifton was adopted aged two. When she was seven her mother told her she was adopted, but it was so shameful that she should never let anyone know, and she must never let her father know she... [more]

Loxterkamp, David

Dr. Loxterkamp was adopted as a baby by a doctor and a nurse and raised in north-western Iowa, USA. He is now a general practitioner in coastal Maine. He has published a number of articl... [more]

Montezuma, Carlos

The Yavapai boy Wassaja was captured by the Pima people in an 1871 raid but very soon sold on to a white man, Carlos Gentilé, for $30.00. Gentilé named him Carlos Montezuma and adopted him,... [more]

Quinn, Phil

Quinn and his brothers went into care when their parents' violent marriage ended in divorce. After a number of foster placements, he wound up in an adoptive family where he was systematical... [more]

Whitman, Marcus

Whitman's father died when he was eight and his mother sent him and his four brothers and sisters away to be raised by relatives. He was away for 10 years. He became a medical doctor and... [more]

Williams, Daniel Hale

Williams was born to a mixed-race family in Pennsylvania. His father, a white man, was married to a free Black woman, and was an active abolitionist who died when he was 11. Although som... [more]