Doctor Fisher lives in Los Angeles with his partner Judith Pacht; their four children are scattered across the US and the UK. By the end of his formal education he had become a physician. After residency and subspecialty training, he became a board-certified specialist of Sleep Medicine, Pulmonary Diseases and Internal Medicine. His private practice continued for forty years, until he retired several years ago from patient care and as Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCLA. He now especially enjoys tennis and photography. Sleep: A User's Guide is his first full length book, although he previously wrote (with the late Myron Stein MD) a booklet for patients with asthma at the request of the American College of Chest Physicians. He has authored more than twenty medical research papers. He has contributed chapters to books published by UCLA and the Fogarty Center of the National Institutes of Health, and has written articles for local newspapers.

A popular lecturer, he has given hundreds of talks to audiences of the general public as well as to physicians at every level of training and practice, and has been invited to comment on public health issues for TV news programs in Los Angeles.