Dr, Ronald Earl Smith, M.D.
Ron Smith, upon graduation from Amarillo High School, enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He was soon after appointed to the United States Naval Academy, graduating with the class of 1966. He attended the University of Texas Medical School and completed an Internal Medicine residency at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine and Naval Hospital San Diego. Dr. Smith was the first physician trained in critical care medicine by the US Navy, completing his fellowship at the University of Southern California Center for the Critically Ill in Los Angeles in 1976. He soon became one of the first physicians involved in Navy Alcohol treatment studying under his great teacher Captain Joseph Pursch.
He left the Navy in 1978 and as a civilian Dr. Smith founded the emergency medicine residency program at Loma Linda University Medical School. During this time, he and his brother Richard Smith worked together to start the Winners Foundation which offered free substance abuse treatment at Santa Anita and other race tracks in the Thoroughbred Racing industry throughout the world. His interest in addiction and recovery led to an interest in the psychological growth during the middle and mature years of life, which led him to complete his psychiatry training at Loma Linda, where he also taught emergency and critical care medicine.
He returned to active duty in 1992 as a psychoanalyst and contributed as medical consultant for the Honorable Jim Ramstad for the Ramstad -Wellstone bill which was eventually passed in 2008 as the Parity Act. As an Emergency Physician he accompanied Senator Arlen Specter traveling on his worldwide congressional delegations. Senator Specter enabled Dr Smith to meet many world leaders and contribute significantly as a political psychologist.
Dr. Ronald Smith is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Psychiatry, and Addiction Medicine. He completed his psychoanalytic training at the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute in Beverly Hills, California and has a Doctorate in Philosophy of Psychoanalysis. Since 2002, he has been annually recognized by the Consumer’s Research Council as one of America’s Top Psychiatrists in Psychoanalysis and Alcoholism.
Ron is married to Dr. Anita Alexandra Gadhia Smith, an accomplished author and practicing psychologist in Washington DC. They have three children (Matthew, an attorney, Travis, a business owner and Tara, a recent graduate of NYU Medical school) and six grandchildren (Treston, Riley, Gavin, McLaine, Boone and Texas).
Ron will continue his interest in political psychiatry. He will work in private practice and continue to lobby for the treatment of our homeless and mentally ill in hospitals instead of jails, for decriminalization of addiction, and for NCAA football playoff on the field. He will also continue his quest for a Kentucky Derby winner.
