Synopsis
ROCK DOC will take you from backstage at a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon concert in the early seventies, where Neil's production company, Circus Talents, Ltd. was providing production services, to the office operating rooms of elite New York surgeons where Neil Ratner MD was Director of Anesthesia.As a teenager, Neil was an aspiring rock n’ roll drummer but ended up on the other side of the business working as both a tour manager for Emerson, Lake, & Palmer and providing production for the Pink Floyd. After a bad attack of kidney stones and a stint in the hospital, Neil had an epiphany and decided to pursue his childhood dream of becoming a doctor. He finished college, learnt Spanish, spent four years at a medical school in Mexico, completed two years of surgical training and an anesthesia residency, and helped create the new specialty of office-based anesthesia in Manhattan. In doing so, Dr. Ratner became an expert in the use of the new drug, Propofol, a drug that would play a significant role in Neil's future.Although Dr. Ratner encountered many celebrities in his anesthesia practice, one would change his life... Michael Jackson. Eight years after establishing his anesthesia practice, Michael Jackson walked into an office in which Neil was the Director of Anesthesia. Neil became a trusted friend of Michael's from 1994 to 2002, periodically going on tour and spending time with Michael at Neverland. Read in ROCK DOC how their relationship profoundly affected both...Rock Doc is Neil’s remarkable journey about Rock & Roll and Michael Jackson, Nelson Mandela, a prison sentence with very unexpected results and how helping the poorest of the poor became a key part of his life.
About the Author
Neil quit college in the late sixties and traversed the Hollywood celebrity world as a successful road manager for names like Edgar Winter s White Trash and tour manager for Emerson Lake and Palmer. He established a full service production company (a pioneering approach at this stage) to support the artists on tour and worked with T-Rex, Genesis, Pink Floyd and many others. Later in his career he managed the successful songwriter Denise Rich and built Dream Factory studios in NYC. Denise was the wife of Marc Rich, (one of the world s most successful commodities traders, indicted in the largest case of tax evasion ever brought against an individual in the US at that time) After his successful career in the music industry he decided it was time to follow his heart and pursue his other childhood dream of becoming an MD. Even though not a single American school wanted to take him, he didn t give up and moved to Mexico to get his medical degree. He made it back into the American system and after many years of residency Neil became an anaesthesiologist. Traditionally anaesthesiologists worked in hospitals but Neil had other ideas. He was the first to take the practice of anaesthesia out of the hospital and into doctors offices in NYC. When Propofol became available in the U.S. in the late 1980 s Neil was one of the first to become expert in its usage as it was a perfect drug for office use. His relationship with the top plastic and reconstructive surgeons in New York allowed him to treat a number of high profile patients. That s how Neil met Michael Jackson. He became his personal doctor and a close friend. They had a lot in common. Neil accompanied the star from late 1997 until his last performance in 2001. During Michael Jackson s tour in South Africa, Michael introduced Neil to Nelson Mandela. They would meet again a few years later when Neil went with Michael to present Mandela a check for Mandela s Children s Fund. A meeting that would have a great impact on Neil s future charity work It all came crashing down when Neil was convicted for insurance fraud and sentenced to jail. This was a turning point in his life. Power and greed were no longer perfectly acceptable ways of exploiting his personal position. He served four months in federal prison and 4 months of home confinement. Worse than that he lost everything, money reputation, job, friends. Neil refused to be defeated and became more focused on improving the lives of people in deprived areas around the globe. He knew it was time to make a difference. He knew life was not just about money and material things. This is when his relationship with Nelson Mandela began to play a role in how he was going to make a contribution to humankind. It wasn t that Neil hadn t tried before. He began with solo charity work in Samburu, Kenya, where he established a bush clinic. A few years later after the US Embassy bombings in Africa in 1999, he co-led a team of doctors that operated on over 300 people that suffered deforming injuries. But Neil knew that wasn t enough. Going to prison and losing everything showed him a different side of life. It was time to start something new. He established a charity project called International Community Bakeries. Its purpose was to create community based, community supported, self-sustaining micro bakeries which produce fresh, high quality, healthy breads. The charity started with creating a bakery in South Africa at a place called Nkosi s Haven. It is a home for very poor single HIV positive Moms and their kids. When Mandela heard about the project he helped Neil raise the necessary funds for the bakery. The bakery opened in 2009. A second bakery followed in a township outside Cape Town two years later and last year they opened a third bakery in one of the worst slums in Port Au Prince Haiti
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