Neal Kotin

Neal Kotin was born and raised in Brooklyn and then moved to Long Island. In High School, he volunteered at a hospital and tutored kids and immigrants who didn’t speak English. For those summers in High School, he worked at beach clubs as a chair-boy, bus boy, and also parking cars.

For college, he went to RPI, an engineering school in upstate New York. After two years at this school, he graduated and went on to Medical School at Albany Medical College. After graduating from Medical School, he went to Johns Hopkins, where he learned to be a Pediatrician. He then moved to New York City where he worked at Mount Sinai Hospital and became a specialist in kids' Asthma. Neil stayed at Mount Sinai for three years where he helped run the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. After his work there, he went into private practice as a general pediatrician and has worked there for the past thirty years.

Now at sixty-three, Neal Kotin has three children: one daughter and two sons. He says that he has a very close relationship with his family and with his kids.

His family is very big on sports, which is one of the many ways he has bonded with his children. In the past, he attended his kid's sports games and also went to watch baseball and basketball with them. He coached his son's little league, helped his daughter with squash, and in his free time, his family would go skiing and golfing.

Neal has said that “Happiness is most important, not grades, and not money.”
Throughout his life, he says that his Uncle is his biggest role model because he worked as a general doctor who took care of people at all ages. Another role model was Neal’s own pediatrician as a kid. He had a very gentle manner and was happy and interested in his work–Neil wanted to be the same way).

He says that being a parent and raising children who are happy, successful, and feel a commitment and devotion to their family was most important. One of his greatest accomplishments was raising his family.
When he was in High School, Neal says that he got into many colleges but when he was accepted into a two-year college program where he was guaranteed an opportunity to attend Medical School. He says that he should have taken his time and gone to all four years of college. He thinks that if he had done so, he would have had more time to grow as a student and a person. After his father passed from lung cancer (related to radiation), he regrets not taking a more active role in his health and wishes he had paid closer attention to his father before he became too ill.

Neil’s most important lesson is to “Enjoy your family when they are young and to not focus so much on work, because you may miss out on family life, including your children’s early years and watching them grow up.” He also says that “You can be very successful, but all that success is not worth it if you are not happy.”