Rock Doc

Summary

Rock Doc will take you from backstage at a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon concert in the early '70s, 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-and-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 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, learned 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. Hear in Rock Doc how their relationship profoundly affected both....

Rock Doc is Neil’s remarkable journey about rock and 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.