Dr. Cattau received his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He did his internal medicine training at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital and his GI fellowship at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Upon completion of training, he joined the staff at Bethesda and became the Chief of Gastroenterology. While there, Dr. Cattau was attending gastroenterologist to the President, Vice-President, and Congress of the United States. He left the Navy as a captain and became an Associate Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and Director of Clinical Endoscopy at the National Institute of Health. Dr. Cattau left Georgetown in 1990 to join the Memphis Gastroenterology Group.

Dr. Cattau is an active member of several professional societies and serves on the review boards of several professional journals. He has published over 175 abstracts, articles, and chapters in medical journals and textbooks. He is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Tennessee Memphis, The Health Science Center, and remains active in clinical research and teaching. He serves as a faculty member at medical conferences locally, nationally, and internationally. His honors include a Navy Commendation medal for his care of President Reagan.

Dr. Cattau lives in Germantown with his wife, Susanne. They have two children, Christopher and Megan.  His joy is growing in faith.