Dr Crooks grew up in Rochester, Minnesota. He spent the first 20 years of his adult life as a musician, singing opera and oratorio in Germany and the US, as well as conducting an 85 voice community chorus in New England. As he approached the age of 40, he began to realize that he wanted to create a difference in the lives of people in a different way, and while preparing to apply to medical school, he worked as a research assistant at Yale School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry. It was at Yale that Dr. Crooks saw firsthand the possibilities that the branch of medicine specializing in brain function could offer in the relieving of suffering and the promotion of health.
At age 44, Dr. Crooks was accepted to the 7th oldest medical school in the nation, University of Vermont College of Medicine (renamed in honor of Robert Larner MD in 2016, http://www.med.uvm.edu/about). Dr Crooks was honored with the William Sweetser Award for Excellence in Psychiatry when he graduated in 2008. Dr. Crooks went on to do his specialty training in psychiatry with UT Southwestern-Austin, where he was awarded the Outstanding Psychiatry Resident Award at graduation in 2012.
Dr. Crooks is a board-certified psychiatrist, a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology. Dr. Crooks is recognized as a TX Top Doc 2018 and 2019 (https://txtopdocs.com).
Dr. Crooks enjoys painting, songwriting, performing music, public speaking, writing articles and essays, playing golf, and spending time in the beautiful outdoors.
