Dr. Loren A. Olson is writing a book with the working title of Finally Out: Unlocking the Closet in Mid-Life and Beyond, a book about coming out of the closet as a mature man. Dr. Olson is a psychiatrist with over 30 years in the practice of psychiatry.  This book is based on his own experience of coming out at the age of 40 and incorporates his understanding of psychiatric principles.

Professional Life

Loren Olson

Loren A. Olson, MD, DLFAPA is Certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and was recognized by the American Psychiatric Association with the peer-nominated award of Distinguished Life Fellow.  After having been nominated by his patients, he received the “Exemplary Psychiatrist” award from the National Alliance for Mental Illness.

Dr. Olson’s professional career has been spent treating and advocating for people who experience thought and mood disorders. For many years he served as a medical executive for two of the largest hospitals in Iowa, working to improve the quality of care in their psychiatric programs. He has also taught psychiatry to psychiatric residents, medical students, physician assistant students and a variety of other allied health professionals. Prior to his psychiatric training, he served as a Flight Surgeon in the United States Navy.

Writer and Researcher

Dr. Olson has received awards from the American Psychiatric Association for his writing and editing. He has conducted independent research on a non-clinical population of mature men who have sex with men. He was inspired to write about the subject because of general lack of professional and lay information on the subject of coming out of the closet at mid-life or later.

Media

Loren Olson

Dr. Olson has served as a psychiatric consultant to re reporters on a variety of psychiatric subjects. He has contributed to articles on physician attitudes about health care reform, how same-sex marriage may effect life expectancy, drug abuse and drug diversion, “sexting” for seniors, and mature male sexuality.

He has been a contributor to a variety of blogs and has written essays on telling his grandchildren about his gay marriage, coming out of the closet, the effect of tolerance of same-sex relationships on rates of HIV, health care reform, and assisting his mother in her decisions about how to die.  He has been interview many times for newspapers, radio and TV.

Personal

Loren Olson

Dr. Olson was married previously and is the proud father of two daughters and the grandfather of six children. His experience as a father has given him a very personal exposure to the centrality of children in the lives of gay men who are dealing with a decision about whether or not to come out of the closet.  He has found that there are very few LGBT resources available for seniors.

After the Iowa Supreme Court found, in a unanimous decision, that the Iowa statute limiting civil marriage to a union between a man and a woman violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, Dr. Olson and his partner of over 20 years were married at Plymouth Church in Des Moines, Iowa, on September 26, 2009, an occasion celebrated with 300 of their friends.

Dr. Olson and his husband, Doug Mortimer, live on a farm in Madison County Iowa — near one of the Bridges of Madison County — where they raise Belted Galloway cattle. They are very involved in sustainable agriculture and the production of grass-fed beef. Dr. Olson was featured on the subject of raising grass-fed cattle on a program on the national cable TV channel RFD-TV.