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BOARD CERTIFIED BY THE AMERICAN NATUROPATHIC MEDICAL CERTIFICATION BOARD (ANMCB)
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PH.D. IN ALTERNATIVE AND INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE FROM QUANTUM UNIVERSITY (PHD-IMD)
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NATUROPATHIC DOCTOR FROM TRINITY SCHOOL OF NATURAL HEALTH (ND)
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MASTER HERBALIST TRINITY SCHOOL OF NATURAL HEALTH (MH)
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CERTIFIED NUTRITIONAL COUNSELOR TRINITY SCHOOL OF NATURAL HEALTH (CNC)
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CERTIFIED NATURAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL (CNHP)
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CERTIFIED HEALTH SPECIALIST (CHS)
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PASTORAL MEDICAL ASSOCIATION LICENSE #6874975
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T 3 CERTIFIED BY THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF RESTORATIVE MEDICINE (AARM)
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DOCTOR OF HUMANITARIAN SERVICE
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INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR COLON HYDROTHERAPY I-ACT CERTIFIED
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MEMBER OF aMERICAN ACADEMY OF ANTI-AGING MEDICINE (A4M)
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INSTITUTE OF WOMEN’s HEALTH AND INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE
THE NATUROPATH
Dr. Gail Ravello has a Ph.D of Alternative and Integrative Medicine (Ph.D-IMD) from Quantum University and Is board Certified by the American Naturopathic Medical Certification Board (ANMCB). She is a highly skilled Naturopath Doctor with over 21 years of experience in healthcare, working in both private practice and hospital outpatient care. Gail started her quest in healthcare at an early age and knew there was a calling on her life to be involved in patient care. Gail’s extensive credentials in naturopathic medicine from Trinity College of Natural Health consist of a Doctorates of Naturopathic Medicine (ND), Master in Herbal Medicine (MH), Certified Natural Health Professional (CNHP), Certified Nutritional Counselor (CNC), and Certified Health Specialist (CHS). Gail is an active member of The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M), Certified Natural Health Professionals (CNHP), and the Institute of Women’s Health and Integrative Medicine. Gail has always demonstrated the exceptional skill in patient care with the ability to determine health problems by listening to patient complaints and lifestyle examinations. Gail gained the skill and knowledge of identifying various forms of skin problems from bad acne to detrimental levels of skin cancer and removal of suspected growth. Gail’s many years in the field of Internal Medicine and Alternative Medicine in Roswell has allowed her to help a wide range of patients with various health problems.
JOURNEY
Dr. Gail Ravello has possessed a passion for patient medical care starting from the very young age of ten. Gail always demonstrates knowledge about caring for the sick and elderly. After graduating high school she continued her education at Queens College in New York studying pre-med.
She started pursuing her career in medicine in August of 1990, working in a private medical practice and later transitioning into a position at St. Charles Hospital performing multifaceted duties in Occupational medicine, where she gained extensive experience dealing with testing and diagnostics of the human body making sure individuals were fit to perform their day to day occupational duties.
Gail married her husband Lloyd in 1994, and now have three wonderful children together with two little puppies to complete her family.
The family relocated to Orlando Florida in 2000 where Gail was employed by Florida Hospital, and charged with the training of 1st, 2nd and 3rd year residents in all fields of medicine from pediatrics to geriatric patients. It was here that she learned how limited the training and education of young doctors was, in the areas related to treating the person as a whole, as well as finding the root cause of their medical problems rather than a single symptom. Gail helped many young resident physicians navigate their way to becoming successful doctors.
Gail decided to pursue her experience in the field of dermatology where she was blessed to work with three of the most skilled and prominent dermatologists in their field. After they recognized her high skill and aptitude in detecting various skin cancers, this enabled her to work side by side with each surgeon. Gail gained the skill and knowledge of identifying various forms of skin problems from bad acne to detrimental levels of skin cancer such as Actinic Keratosis: Precursor to Squamous Cell Carcinoma, Basal Cell Carcinoma, Melanoma, Kaposi’s Sarcoma (KS) and Squamous Cell Carcinoma and assisted with Moh’s surgery to remove the cancer growth. This is where her exceptional suturing skills were demonstrated by closing the wound left behind by the surgery and making them unnoticeable to the naked eye.
Gail felt a spiritual calling to return back to where she originally started and that is in the field of Internal and Alternative Medicine in Roswell. Here is where it was most highlighted that people needed to be knowledgeable about gaining optimal health through treatment and education. Most individuals are unaware at how detrimental some of the lifestyle choices, genetic inheritance and stress related to occupational and family situations cause havoc on the human body, mind and soul.
These repeated experiences with many patients led her to pursue a doctorate in naturopathic medicine. Gail opened a naturopathic health practice to help individuals make better choices with nutrition and natural medicine decisions.
WHAT IS NATUROPATHY ?
According to the Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine written by Michael Murray, ND and Joseph Pizzorno, ND, “Naturopathic Medicine is a system of medicine that focuses on prevention and use of nontoxic, natural therapies.”
These natural therapies refer to, but are not limited to, proper diet and nutrition, exercise, nutritional supplements, herbology, homeopathy, and lifestyle modification and counseling.
The six principles on which Naturopathy is established are:
- First, do no harm…primum no nocere.
- Respect the “healing powers of nature”..vis medicatrix naturae. (naturae being feminine)
- Identify and treat the cause…tolle causam.
- Treat the whole person.
- The physician is teacher.
- Prevention is the best cure.
Medicine is returning to the grass roots it once followed. Today we are all becoming very aware that we are indeed interconnected and have multiple causes of ill-health that are being acknowledged instead of the traditional medical certainties of widely used in the past. This means the evolving norm will be the naturopathic/holistic view where the body, mind, emotions, social factors, and the environment all determine the health of the individual. We now know that “curing the patient” with drugs and surgery is possible without ever “healing the patient.”
The re-emerging Naturopathic Physician is an example of the true meaning of the word “doctor.” Doctor coming from the Latin “docere” which means “to teach.” By teaching the patient how to achieve and maintain good health, the Naturopath empowers their patients with the proper education and motivational tools that are needed to actively participate in their own healing and health maintenance.
The patient is changing from that of victim to that of empowered individual. By proper instruction, the patient learns how to achieve a state of balance that is conducive to disease prevention.
The function of the Naturopath augmenting the daily health of the individual…incorporated with the Traditional Allopathic Physician interfacing in the time of fulminate disease and trauma…can only lead to a system that maximizes the functioning of the entire medical system.
HISTORY OF NATUROPATHY ?
The history of “natural medicine” begins with old culture wisdom found of Ayurveda in India, Taoism in China, and Hippocrates in Greece.
Dr. Benedict Lust, after being cured of TB by bathing in the Danube at a “water-cure” clinic in Europe, moved to the US in 1890. He brought these ancient theories to America and by 1902 had established the first “naturopathic college” in New York City.
His tenets of Naturopathic Medicine are contained in his book, The Principles, Aims, and Program of the Natural Cure.” The natural system for curing disease is based on a return to nature in regulating the diet, breathing, exercising, bathing, and the employment of various forces to eliminate the poisonous products in the system, and so raise the vitality of the patient to a proper standard of health…..
THE PROGRAM OF NATUROPATHY ?
Elimination of evil habits, or the weeds of life, such as over eating, alcoholic drinks, drugs, the use of tea, coffee, and coca that contains poisons, meat eating, improper hours of living, waste of vital forces, lowered vitality, sexual and social aberrations, worry, etc.
Corrective Habits. Correct breathing, correct exercise, right mental attitude. Moderation in the pursuit of health and wealth.
NEW PRINCIPLES OF LIVING
Proper fasting, selection of food, hydropathy, light and air baths, mud baths, osteopathy, chiropractic and other forms of mechano-therapy, mineral salts obtained in organic form, electrotherapy, heliopathy, steam or Turkish baths, sitz baths, etc…”
John Kellogg was a physician, Seventh-Day Adventist, and vegetarian who ran a Sanitarium which utilized natural therapies. His brother built a factory to produce health foods and their ideas about healthy eating spawned the Kellogg cereal company we all have come to rely on. Their former employee was C.W.Post who also capitalized on natural eating habits.
Naturopathic Medicine flourished in the early 1900’s until the 1930’s. In the 1930’s drug companies realized the financial gains to be made with “medicines” and a trade off was under way…more effective therapies and subsidizing of medical schools for the allopathic physicians and political stances by allopaths to see to it that laws were passed restricting all other health systems that didn’t use pharmaceuticals.
Today, things are changing because the public is realizing that life-style plays an enormous part in chronic disease and the allopathic physician and his pharmaceutical closet has little if any effect on chronic disease. No where is this more obvious than with the over use of antibiotics and the resistance of bacteria to these drugs.
Louis Pasteur developed this germ theory that became the back bone of the allopathic profession. But during this same time period, Claude Bernard, a French scientist, developed the theory that the host’s internal environment was more important in determining disease than the germ. He felt that if the physician stressed making the patient’s “internal terrain an inhospitable place for disease to flourish,” the disease could never over take the host. Louis Pasteur later agreed that Bernard was right, but allopathic medicine had already settled on the germ theory to carry its cause and effect philosophy.
ALLOPATHIC VS NATUROPATHIC PHILOSOPHIES
When a person becomes sick, the allopath will diagnose a disease with a scientifically proved solution. That solution is applied to the disease and thus the patient should get well. To the naturopath, the patient’s health is failing and this less than healthy state has developed. By stimulating the patient’s immune system, cleansing their kidneys and/or liver, or normalizing their gut microflora the patient is brought back to health and the disease can no longer exist in the patient.
Naturopaths not only use life-style changes, diet, exercise, but also nutrition, botanical medicine, homeopathy, Traditional Chinese Medicine, acupuncture, hydrotherapy, physical medicine, counseling and other psychotherapies, and minor surgeries to “normalize the patient internal terrain.”
STRENGTH OF NATUROPATHIC IS PREVENTION
The need for Naturopathic Medicine should speak for itself:
- Over one trillion dollars spent each year on “disease” care – this means over 15% of the Gross National Product is spent on disease care
- Projected figures and population aging statistics project 100% of GNP will be spent on disease care in the year 2040
- A 62% increase of traditional doctors from 1970 to 1992
- Specialists rose from 32% in 1950 to 80% in 1990
- Medical analysis estimate that 36% of physician visits, 56% surgeries, and 15% outpatient visits are unnecessary with 50% of inpatient care not being medically indicated.
- In a 10,000 patient population base, doubling the number of surgeons in this area DOUBLES the number of surgeries performed!
Sadly America out spends the rest of the world in “health” care but as a nation, we are not composed of healthy people!
- Almost 50% of working-in-their-prime Americans have a serious chronic disease or are in poor health
- Virtually almost 100% of the elderly are affected by at least one chronic disease
EDUCATION / LICENSING / GEORGIA REQUIREMENTS
There are presently four accredited schools in the USA
- The National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, Oregon, founded 1956
- Bastyr University in Seattle, Washington, founded 1978
- Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine & Health Sciences in Tempe, Arizona, founded 1992
- U of Bridgeport in CT, founded 1997
There are also many Technical Training Programs throughout the USA that have offered ND training through home study and organized hands on practicums.
ND’s are currently licensed as primary health care practitioners in Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington. ND’s are also recognized throughout all of Canada. In the District of Columbia, ND’s must register in order to practice.
In all of these states, the ND’s, no matter their mode of training, must pass the NPLEX which is a comprehensive board exam in order to practice Naturopathy.
Presently in the state of Georgia there is no licensing board for Naturopaths. There was a board in the 1950’s but it was dissolved. Until the board is re-established in Georgia, it is our feeling that a ND practicing under the protection of a licensed medical physician offers the public the best of both medical modalities without exposing the public to questionable health care.
Doctor of the Future
The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.
— Thomas Edison
With the Genome Project nearing completion at the beginning of the new millennium, the entire field of medicine will change so that the medicine of today will seem just as barbaric as the “blood letting” of the late 1800’s.
Joining in harmony with our Mother Earth will again become the rule not the exception. The mammoth “bigger than God” early 19th century undertakings like the Titanic, the Hoover Dam, and the Empire State building will take their place in history along with the cause and effect of 19th century medicine. We will learn to align our lives more with the earth.
We truly are living at an exciting time in the evolution of the worlds higher levels of consciousness.