Reflections on Happiness from 80 Years in Medicine | Gladys McGarey, MD

The Doctor's Art

Henry Bair and Tyler Johnson

Medicine, Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Philosophy

5 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2024

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Born in India in 1920, Gladys McGarey, MD has a life story marked with various pivotal moments of the 20th century. She witnessed Gandhi's Salt March in her final childhood days in India, arrived in the US amid the Great Depression, began medical school four months before the US joined World War II, and became a physician at a time when few women were accepted in the profession. She would later co-found the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine and the American Board of Integrative Medicine. At over 100 years old, Dr Gladys, as she likes to be called, is still practicing medicine. In 2023, she published The Well-Lived Life A 102-Year-Old Doctor’s Six Secrets to Health and Happiness At Every Age, in which she details her approach to a happy life by focusing on finding love and purpose.

In this episode, Dr Gladys joins us to discuss her remarkable journey in medicine, what holistic medicine means to her, her own experiences with cancer, the healing power of love and human connection, and more.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

2:08 - Dr. Gladys’ early years and her path to becoming a physician

7:20 - The discrimination that Dr. Gladys endured as a female physician

11:02 - What Dr. Gladys’ medical practice looked like when she began her career

12:23 - Dr. Gladys’s definition of holistic medicine and how it became a part of her practice

18:22 - Dr. Gladys’s case for why love is essential when providing healing for a patient

23:27 - How Dr. Gladys’ own experience as a cancer patient demonstrates her approach to holistic medicine

26:12 - What Dr. Gladys believes has been lost amidst all of the advances that medicine has made

30:09 - How spirituality has affected Dr. Gladys’ approach to medicine

31:41 - Concrete ways that doctors can incorporate holistic sensibilities into their practices

Dr. Gladys can be found on Instagram at @begladmd.

Dr. Gladys MacGarey is the author of A Well Lived Life: A 102-Year Old Doctor’s Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Any Age (2023).

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Henry Bear.
0:03.0	And I'm Tyler Johnson.
0:05.0	And you're listening to The Doctors Art, a podcast that explores meaning in medicine.
0:09.0	Throughout our medical training and career, we have pondered.
0:13.2	What makes medicine meaningful?
0:15.1	Can a stronger understanding of this meaning create better doctors?
0:18.8	How can we build health care institutions that nurture the doctor-patient connection.
0:23.0	What can we learn about the human condition
0:24.8	from accompanying our patients in times of suffering?
0:28.0	In seeking answers to these questions,
0:30.0	we meet with deep thinkers working across health care,
0:33.0	from doctors and nurses to patients and health care
0:35.4	executives, those who have collected a career's worth of hard-earned wisdom.
0:40.1	Probing the moral heart that beats at the core of medicine, we will hear stories that are by turns heart-breaking, amusing, inspiring, challenging, and enlightening.
0:49.0	We welcome anyone curious about why doctors do what they do.
0:52.8	Join us as we think out loud about what illness and healing can teach us
0:57.1	about some of life's biggest questions.
1:00.0	Born in India in India in 1920, Dr. Gladys McGarry's life story is marked with various pivotal moments of the 20th century.
1:10.0	She witnessed Gandhi's salt march in her final childhood days,
1:14.0	arrived in the US in the midst of the Great Depression,
1:17.0	began medical school four months before the US joined the Second World War,
1:21.0	and became a physician at a time when few women were accepted in the profession.
	...

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