He graduated from the USC School of Medicine, did his residency in psychiatry at UCLA, as well as a fellowship in geriatric psychiatry, and where he earned the MPH at the School of Public Health. He is board certified in general psychiatry and geriatric psychiatry and a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Plotkin is clinical Professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA. He received the Ph.D. from the New Center for Psychoanalysis, was the first director of UCLA’s Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory Disorders Service, and is past president of the Southern California Psychiatric Society.