Arnold Leab Flick, M.D. was born in Los Angeles. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California at Los Angeles and his medical degree from the University of Chicago. Further medical training was obtained at the Columbia- Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and the University of Washington in Seattle. He is Medical Board Certified in both Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology.

Since completing his training in 1961, Dr. Flick has been in San Diego. There he maintained an office in the specialty of Gastroenterology until his retirement from private practice. Following closing his office, Dr. Flick continued with active patient care in a variety of venues, following which he was a consultant to a review panel for the medical insurance industry until 2006. While maintaining his private practice, Dr. Flick participated in a variety of other medical activities. Among these were posts as Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Medical School of the University of California at San Diego, Medical Director of Smoking Research/San Diego, Chairman of the Department of Medicine at Mercy Hospital (now Scripps-Mercy Hospital) in San Diego, and a member of the Board of Directors at the San Diego Blood Bank. He has authored or co-authored 26 publications on medical topics. As a gastroenterologist, Dr. Flick has met with thousands of patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. These greatly enhanced the information he had acquired in his training. Drawing on this experience, Dr. Flick has written Living Well: Winning the War Against Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Functional Bowel Distress. Dr. Flick has been married to his wife, Nancy Haas, for 53 years. They have 3 daughters and 8 grandchildren. Tennis and the violin occupy some of his time.