Dr. Charles van Tuyl was born in 1942 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He received his high school diploma from Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana in 1960. He received a B.A. in Religion Studies at Yale University in 1964 and went on to Indiana University to earn a Ph. D. in Inner Asian Studies in 1972. He then returned to Oklahoma where he taught at Bacone College until he made a career change and entered the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, where he earned the M.D degree, awarded in 1987. He did a one-year rotating internship at the City of Faith Hospital before doing residency training at Griffin Memorial Hospital in Norman. Since that time, he has practiced psychiatry in Oklahoma. He has extensive history in assessment and treatment both in patient and out patient for the most vulnerable and yet most difficult to treat population that lives on our sidewalks . He takes a conservative approach to prescribing medicine and tries to help patients to develop healthy lifestyles. He understands the complexity of mental health and the role that spirituality can play in healing. He has also published several books and articles on ethnohistory and linguistics. His professional literary works include 5 books on the Cherokee Language where he combined his skillset with Cherokee Linguist Durbin Feeling. Their last works is The Cherokee Verb which will soon be available for free download. This crucial work has assisted in preserving the Cherokee Language.