Welcome to my website!
I'm Robert Michael Cavanaugh, Jr. MD, author of Dying to be Perfect: How Teens Can Stay Happy, Healthy and Alive.

About the Author
Dr. Robert Michael Cavanaugh, Jr. is Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics at the State University of New York, Upstate Medical University in Syracuse and was the Director of Adolescent Medicine at this institution for 32 years. He is a board-certified pediatrician and an adolescent medicine specialist. His entire career as a physician, an educator, and a researcher has been dedicated to the care of children with a special emphasis on the adolescent age group.

Dr. Cavanaugh is widely published in the medical literature and has authored numerous articles in the most prestigious pediatric and adolescent journals. He has a national reputation as Program Chairman for the Section on Adolescent Health of the American Academy of Pediatrics, as a member of the Executive Committee for the Section on Adolescent Health of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and as a past member of the editorial board of Adolescent Health Update published by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Dr. Cavanaugh's other career as a parent has been shared with Marilyn, the most capable of mothers and his devoted wife of 52 years. Together they have managed to raise four teenagers and clear the hurdles as their offspring struggled for footing with life's ups and downs. Now that he has become a seasoned veteran, Dr. Cavanaugh would like to share his experience with readers so that others will benefit from the valuable lessons that he has learned as Doctor Dad.

About my latest book, Dying to be Perfect: How Teens Can Stay Happy, Healthy and Alive

Many adolescents succumb to pressures on how to look, feel, and act as they search for space to grow in a society obsessed with perfection and immediate gratification. Dying to be Perfect: How Teens Can Stay Happy, Healthy and Alive uses a novel approach to getting into the heads of adolescents as the key to touching their hearts and reducing risk-taking behaviors. It will be the first book to compare the three major maturational stages of adolescence to a space flight and show readers how to develop survival skills to overcome societal pressures during the launch, orbit and reentry into adulthood. The flight plan will include a HEADS FIRST® Checklist, which the author created to help teenagers and their families figure out where they stand and what to expect with each passing phase. The metaphorical journey will be written in a humorous tone to discuss serious problems in down-to-earth, everyday language which readers can easily relate to. The mission will be to bring the young voyagers back safely from their trek into outer space as happy, healthy adults. Each chapter will be filled with practical suggestions and tips, which follow in sequence as the story line unfolds. A number of moving, real-life adolescent case histories will also be used to add to the human-interest element of the book. More than just a survival guide, this book will raise a call to arms for combating the powerful societal pressures that threaten the health and well-being of young people today.