“One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.”

― Lewis Carroll

Yifrah Kaminer, MD, approached me by email, aware that he had “lots of stories to tell.” He is a published author of two whimsical children's books; “The Secret Life of the Chocolate Tree” about how chocolate is processed from the fruit of the cocoa tree, and a tale of fantasy that features Alice returning back to Wonderland as an adult, in “Alice's Lost Time Wonder.” Most recently he finished a script for a play. Now, I am honored to share this biographical account of the other tales that have made up his life.

The first chapter is an adventure story set in Israel where he was born. After graduating from medical school, Yifrah served in the Navy as a hyperbaric medicine specialist, operating a rescue service for divers in the Sinai and Red Sea Arena. This area is world famous for diving adventures, comparable to Australia's Great Barrier Reef, where you can swim amongst coral and sharks. Here, he responded to diving accidents where the divers needed immediate, lifesaving treatments. People lost their lives, but many were saved.

The next story begins in the United States when Yifrah arrives just in time to experience Hurricane Gloria, which hit Rhode Island in 1985. “Will I die here?” he recalls wondering. While acclimating to living in a new country, he completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Brown University in child and adolescent psychiatry, affiliated with Bradley and McLean hospitals. Here he found his passion and the central purpose of his life, studying and treating addiction in young people. He went on to develop the first academic program on adolescent substance abuse treatment at the University of Pittsburgh and then came back to Rhode Island to develop a similar program. Now, he has been a member of the UConn faculty for thirty years, has published research, and has taught all over the world. 

The stories of addiction and overdose are unbearably sad and told far too often. I sit in our interview where he easily rattles off many disturbing statistics. For example, the number of people who die in fatal drug overdoses in this country is higher than the number of people who die in road accidents, homicide, and suicide combined. And these deaths are all preventable.

“When you focus only on treatment, it's not enough, that is intervention. Prevention is the key.” Yifrah emphasizes the need to educate children to understand the damage addiction causes. It needs to “start early,” preferably in elementary school. Addictive substances are so readily available right now, and limiting their access would be wise. Changing the mistaken perception that substance use is “cool” is long overdue and is of high importance, which includes “marijuana and vaping, which carry severe negative medical, psychiatric, and cognitive developmental consequences, particularly for adolescents!”

Whether he is facing the tragedies of diving accidents or childhood addiction, and a recent trip to Israel where he “worked with traumatized families who experienced the horrors of the Hamas massacre on the Gaza border communities,” a central theme emerges.

The stories of Yifrah's career are about saving lives. The quest to treat and prevent addiction, depression, and suicide, and victims of war mirror his experiences performing the interventions that brought back the breath to the divers who had gone too deep and up too fast. 

It is hard to think about all the unwritten pages of all the lives that can't be saved. “It's traumatic to work with traumatized people, and it takes a special type of person to be able to do it,” he says. I asked him how he deals with such heavy work. His answer: don't bring it home. And here he is at home by his bookshelf, pointing out what he has recently added to them. His own tales, inspired by the wonders that can come from reading and being a child. 

You can support this local author and other small Rhode Island businesses by purchasing them at Ink Fish Books in Warren, or from his Rhode Island-based publisher, Stillwater Books.