Born in Minnesota, Douglas J. Gelb moved to Cambridge, MA for college (Harvard), Chicago, IL for medical and graduate school (University of Chicago), and San Francisco for internship and neurology residency (University of California, San Francisco). He did graduate research in human visual perception, but his clinical experiences in medical school and residency convinced him that his principal interests were patient care and teaching. In 1988, immediately after completing his residency, he moved to the University of Michigan and became the first faculty member in the Department of Neurology to be hired in the clinical academic track. At the University of Michigan, he directs the required third-year neurology clerkship and the second-year course on diseases of the nervous system. Nationally, he has been the Chair of the Consortium of Neurology Clerkship Directors and the Chair of the American Academy of Neurology A.B. Baker Section on Neurologic Education, and has served on numerous other educational committees. He was the lead author of the Neurology Clerkship Core Curriculum.