Loren Fishman, MD is the medical director of Manhattan Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in New York City, the author of eight books, and the author or editor of more than 70 academic articles. He is a world-recognized pioneer in the treatment of piriformis syndrome and rotator cuff tear and an expert in curing back pain. Fishman is an associate editor of Topics in Geriatric Rehabilitation, on the staff at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, and a past president of the New York Society of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. He teaches at Columbia Medical School.
Integrative medicine and yoga are particular interests of Fishman's, who has written four books about yoga and medical conditions: Relief Is In the Stretch: Cure Back Pain With Yoga, Yoga for Multiple Sclerosis, Yoga for Osteoarthritis, and Yoga for Osteoporosis. His other books include Back Pain: How to Relieve Low Back Painand Sciatica, Sciatica Solutions, and Functional Electrodiagnosis.
Research has been an important part of Fishman’s medical practice. He is running a large clinical trial to study the effects of yoga on osteoporosis and has published some results as well as results from his clinical trial examining a yoga-like maneuver to relieve the pain of rotator cuff tear.
After graduating from Christ Church, Oxford, with a degree in philosophy, Fishman spent a year in Pune, Inda, studying yoga with B.K.S. Iyengar, attending every public and private class and taking daily instruction. At that time, Iyengar gave Fishman permission to teach his yoga.Fishman then went to Rush Medical School, did a residency in a Tufts-Harvard program, and served as chief resident in physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Throughout his career, when appropriate, he has incorporated yoga into his medical practice and has watched its healing effects. He is also an enthusiastic practitioner himself and has been doing yoga daily since 1973.
Fishman has been included in numerous “Best Doctors” lists and has lectured widely in the U.S. and abroad. He spoke at the 1st International Conference on Yoga for Health and Social Transformation in January 2011, where he won a prize for his research on yoga for rotator cuff injury.