Alexander A. Levitan ’63M (MD)
Dr. Alexander Levitan is a retired internist and oncologist who practiced medicine in Minneapolis, Minn., for 30 years. Having participated in numerous surgeries in which hypnosis was used as the sole agent for pain control, he is known for his expertise in clinical hypnosis and has appeared on national television and presented more than 165 seminars and workshops around the world. He is also a licensed real estate broker and president of A & L Management, LLC, a Minneapolis real estate management company he co-owns with his wife, Lucy.
Born in Boston, Dr. Levitan received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Cornell University and his medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. He completed his internship at Vanderbilt University Hospital and his residency at the Harvard Medical Unit at Boston City Hospital. From 1965 to 1967, Dr. Levitan served as a lieutenant commander of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps while working as a clinical associate for the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. He went on to complete a fellowship in medicine at the University of Minnesota Hospitals in Minneapolis. Dr. Levitan received his master’s degree in public health in epidemiology from the University of Minnesota in 1970.
As an undergraduate and a medical school student, he worked in Rochester as a chemist at the former Strasenburgh Labs and Eastman Kodak. In 1967, he was certified as an independent investigator for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a post he held until his retirement from medicine in 1998. In tandem with his private practice, he taught for two decades in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Minnesota, rising from instructor to clinical associate professor.
Dr. Levitan generously established the Levitan Family Endowed Scholarship at the School of Medicine and Dentistry in 2001 to support international students’ medical education. As a member of the Medicine and Dentistry National Council, he actively engages with alumni as he travels and hosts University events in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
Widely published on the topics of hypnosis, infection control, oncology, and pharmaceuticals, Dr. Levitan coauthored the book, No Time for Nonsense: Getting Well Against the Odds. For 23 years he has served as advisory editor and on the board of reviewers of the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis. A fellow in the American College of Physicians as well as the Society of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, and he is also a fellow and past president of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. He represents the Minnesota Medical Association on the Minnesota Cancer Alliance Steering Committee and is an emeritus member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. He is also an honorary member of the Australian Society of Hypnosis and the Canadian Society of Clinical Hypnosis.
The Levitans live in New Brighton, Minn., and have three daughters, Lara, Denise, and Karen Matros ’96.