Orthomolecular Medicine Hall of Fame
Inducted 2011I am morally compelled to remain an orthomolecular physician; indeed I am alive because of Orthomolecular Medicine.
Erik Paterson is a fine example of the Orthomolecular General Practitioner working “in the trenches” – in his case in a small town in the Kootenay River valley of British Columbia, Canada, a few kilometers north of the Idaho border.
He was born in Cambridge, England, and graduated with an MB from the University of Glasgow, where he practiced until 1970 before emigrating to Creston, BC. In this beautiful locale, Erik served his rural community until his recent retirement in January 2011.
Erik’s father, T. T. Paterson, began working with Humphrey Osmond on the administrative aspects of psychiatry in 1956. As a teenager, Erik learned of the work being done by Osmond and Abram Hoffer in Saskatchewan on the use of niacin in treating schizophrenia. Later, when he established his own private practice, Erik was dissatisfied with the standard drug approach used by the local psychiatrist for all mentally ill patients. Believing there had to be a better way, he spent time with Abram Hoffer in Saskatoon in 1974. Combining what he learned from Hoffer with material presented by Carl Pfeiffer and Alan Cott at the 1974 meeting of the Canadian Schizophrenia Foundation, he was able to help 78 percent of his schizophrenic patients become well.
Since those early days of discovery and success, Erik has helped hundreds of patients through Orthomolecular treatment. In the Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry and the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, he has made dozens of contributions including many useful case reports from his general practice and he has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine since 1995. A regular presenter at the Orthomolecular Medicine Today Conferences from 1981 to 2006, Erik also participated in the 1998 documentary film “Masks of Madness: Science of Healing”. Along with Abram Hoffer, Erik addressed the Healing Cancer Convention, hosted by Dr Masatoshi Kaneko in Vancouver, 2006
Erik has practiced medicine since 1966, almost as long as he has practiced marriage; he’s been very successful in both endeavors. Jinty, his wife of 56 years, has been a true partner in every way; they have two daughters and two grandchildren.
Erik is a model of perseverance, who has faced the challenges of a remote practice while upholding and promulgating the tenets of Orthomolecular Medicine.
