Rob grew up in the Mid Atlantic and New England regions. He then went to Oberlin College (Ohio) where he graduated with a BA in Biology. After a year of sequencing DNA in a biochem lab at Yale, he entered med school at Penn State University (Hershey). This was followed by residency in Emergency Medicine at York Hospital (York, Pennsylvania). Since finishing residency, Rob has practiced Emergency Medicine in just about every type of EM practice that exists in the US and its Territories. He currently lives in Central Pennsylvania and works at 2 community hospital EDs close to his home. In the larger ED he participates in education of residents of a Family Medicine residency program. Rob is certified by the American Board of Emergency Medicine, and by the American Board of Preventive Medicine with the subspecialty of Addiction Medicine, and participates in Maintenance of Certification in both specialties. He has been an examiner in the AAEM Oral Board Review course for more than a decade, and has assisted with the development of AAEM eOral Board Review content. Rob has an ongoing interest in the causes and treatments of the substance use disorders, particularly how phenotypic heterogeneity and co-occurring mental illness impact the development and durability of addiction pathology. He does not currently practice Addiction Medicine, but he plans to transition his practice to Addiction Medicine as he nears retirement age. Rob feels that the unending parade of patients in his Emergency Medicine practice who are in various stages of either addiction or recovery demands that he stay up to date with the bulk of the core content of Addiction Medicine. Rob and his wife married in 1998. She works as a nurse in nutrition research at a local university. They have 2 boys that will be graduating from high school soon, and 2 dogs that will miss the boys immensely when they start living on their own. Rob enjoys karate, bicycling, downhill skiing and reading about late 19th and early 20th Century European history. He can be followed on Twitter @droelhaf.