Leonard Shlain (August 28, 1937 – May 11, 2009) was an American surgeon and writer; he authored three books.
Dr. Shlain was Chairman of Laparoscopic surgery at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco and was an Associate Professor of Surgery at UCSF.
He was a speaker at such venues as the Smithsonian, Harvard University, Salk Institute, Los Alamos National Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center and the European Union's Ministers of Culture. In 1999, he was a contributor to Academic Press' Encyclopedia of Creatitvity, edited by Steven Runco and Mark Pritzker.
A native of Detroit, Leonard Shlain graduated from high school at the age of 15. He earned an MD at the age of 23 from Wayne State University School of Medicine, having already attended University of Michigan. He served in the Army, attaining the rank of Captain, prior to his internship at UCSF's Mount Zion hospital.