The year was 1959, and an overweight, 12-year-old boy overheard two women talking. “Look at that boy, how fat he is,” one said to the other. It was the catalyst for Glenn Gero. He got involved in body building and nutrition, neither a popular subject at the time, and broke the junior high school record in the 60-yard dash the next year.

His business career route included 12 years in various aspects of medical publishing, and his interest in health, fitness and nutrition continued. Following treatment by a naturopath, “I felt the best I had in my entire life, and I thought, ‘This is a great way to make a living and feel good about yourself.’ I decided to embark on a career as a naturopathic physician, and did many things to enrich my educational experience and my knowledge,” he says.

He earned his Doctorate in Naturopathy degree from Trinity College of Natural Health, a Masters in Applied Science (Nutrition) degree from Edison Institute of Nutrition, and Master Herbalist training through the School of Natural Healing, and is additionally certified in Biofeedback by Neurotherapy & Biofeedback Certification Board, as well as a Certified Exercise & Lifestyle Counselor through the American Association of Lifestyle Counselors. Dr. Gero typically takes over 100 continuing education credits each year, and studies for up to three hours a day; he has completed a myriad of post-doctoral training on premise at Harvard Medical School, John Hopkins School of Medicine and at Columbia University-College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Gero also holds seven nationally recognized fitness certifications, including those relating to medical, corrective and post-rehabilitative exercise.

A Board Certified Naturopath (N.D.), Registered Nutrition Consultant (R.N.C.), Master Herbalist (M.H.) and Certified Lifestyle Counselor (C.L.C), Dr. Gero offers his patients comprehensive health analysis treatment through his practice, the Holistic Naturopathic Center, in Clifton, N.J. He is a professional member of organizations including the American Herbalists Guild, the American Holistic Health Association, the Holistic Pediatric Association and serves as president of the New Jersey Natural Health Practitioner Association.

“You should become a naturopath because you feel passionate about what you do and who you are, not because it seems like a good job to have; people become plumbers because it’s a way to make a living,” Dr. Gero says. “I’m not a naturopathic doctor by profession; I’m a naturopathic doctor from my own personal ideology.”

Although I followed a path of business, I became involved in several companies that were involved in medical publishing. I have 12 years of experience in medical publishing, with some of the most prestigious medical journals in the world. I worked for the American College of Physicians, in the medical publishing divisions of Dun & Bradstreet and McGraw Hill, and I was the vice president of the American Heart Association at a county level.

All along, I had a strong interest in health and fitness. When I had a health issue a number of years back, I was fortunate enough to have gone to a naturopath. In three of four weeks, he treated me for an issue I had for 10 months. I felt the best I had in my entire life, and I thought, “This is a great way to make a living and feel good about yourself.” I decided to embark on a career as a naturopathic physician, and did many things to enrich my educational experience and my knowledge.

I started on my own, I took on a practice in an office with a chiropractic doctor; and then we parted ways. I took over the lease about a year ago an, in turn, brought in another chiropractor and a massage therapist, so now we have a center. We try to integrate care; we’re really three individuals sharing an office space, occasionally we share a patient or refer to one another. Ideally it would be nice if we were fully integrated, but we’re not yet.

I look at the imbalances within the individual that come to me as multifaceted. I wish there was a magic bullet, but most of the time there isn’t. Most of the time there are physical issues, psychological issues and structure issues that we need to bring into balance. Having a multifaceted and multidimensional approach helps me help my patients.

The core of my practice is nutrition; I try to do corrective menu selection. I work with various foods and food plans and try to structure their diets with suggestions for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. I also look closely at food sensitivities, as I find that many people eat foods to which they are sensitive. If those foods are removed, or at least reduced in their diet, there is a much more positive outcome. I use nutritional supplements and herbs sparingly, as needed, focusing on the supplements and herbs that will work therapeutically for each patient. I don’t give them supplements because it’s the thing to do, I give them supplements because through the wide battery of testing I do, I feel the supplements are going to be corrective.

I will create specific exercises to bring people in balance, based on structural and muscular imbalances, creating an exercise prescription or instruction appropriate for their individual function and mobility. I look at each individual’s imbalances, and I also analyze each person’s lifestyle demands, and try to create a program that is going to enhance their ability of what they do in life more efficiently -- whether they are a high level tennis player or if the most strenuous thing they have to do is to take groceries out of the car -- and I build the program accordingly.

I’m also a biofeedback therapist; working with stress, anxiety, panic and depression, I help people transform the stresses of their life the way we change a channel on the TV. We can’t eliminate stresses, but I can help to transform those stresses to help patients recognize the emotion they are experiencing and to transfer it to a positive emotion. I’m also a lifestyle coach, and coaching is important because it creates a reason why a patient should be compliant with their program, gives them directions, helps them set their own goals and gives them a map to achieve those goals.

The intrinsic rewards that I can see and feel every single day from working the people that come to see me are immense. Roughly 85 percent of the people that come to me, even those with serious disorders, are able to call me within two weeks and tell me how well they are doing. One woman had irritable bowel syndrome, IBS, for 40 years, and I’ve been able to turn around symptoms in two weeks. People with depression, people with anxiety, people with blood sugar imbalance, and helping people deal with the pharmacological interventions relating to cancer care, reducing one’s dependence on multiple medications, are all tremendously rewarding adjuncts to what I do. It’s why I do what I do; you see the fruits of your labor very quickly, it’s not about money; to make money, there are many other things that I could do.

Every single person that comes to see me is a challenge. There’s a challenge in getting them to understand that they are a partner in their own health care, that they are a participant in their care, and that I am not here to administer to them, I’m here to partner with them. I do not practice medicine, I practice coaching, and coaching people requires you get their permission to be part of people’s life, and to encourage and motivate them to be very much a part of their own life.

I think being in this field is extremely humbling, there is so much to know, I don’t think any one person could possibly have all of the resources they need in order to be truly effective. While I feel that I am proficient in what I do, there are many gaps in my knowledge, and I feel that’s always going to be the case; the more you learn, the more you open up new holes that you know nothing about. I don’t need any more degrees, but my future goal is to continue to work as hard as I can to close those knowledge gaps. I plan on enhancing my knowledge in functional medicine, botanicals, medical and corrective exercise, and counseling. These are all things that it are important to maintain an awareness and become more proficient.

I don’t think anybody can sit back and say, “I’ve got all the answers.” When you do say that, it’s time to get out of that profession. I’ve been studying this for 27 years, and I don’t have all the answers. I’ve got a very, very good practice, I’m doing well, but I want to make sure that I stay ahead of my patients, who are becoming very sophisticated. Many patients are walking into their doctors offices with more information about their condition than the medical doctor has about their condition. We’re in an information age. People are becoming very sophisticated in terms of their health alternatives. It’s important that I stay a step ahead, I have to be able to help them; I still study two to three hours a day, every day.

I have a receptionist/secretary who answers my phone and sets up most of my initial consultations. In a typical week, I’ll have anywhere from five to nine full consultations. Once I have all of their assessment tests, I put together a report and we go over it. I also get anywhere from four to ten new people coming to see me a week. I try to limit the number of people that come to me to seven in any one day. I really believe that if you see seven people or less every day, every single one of those individuals is very important. How important could you be if you were one of the 60 people a medical doctor sees in a given day? Every person that comes to see me is vitally important; I am focused on them. I also get a number of people who come for follow-ups, or to buy supplements. Follow-ups are important so I may tweak their program and make adjustments.

Initially, they come to see me for a visit of 30 to 45 minutes. I explain my basic ideology, and I give them three questionnaires: one lists 600 symptoms broken into 55 different therapeutic categories; one is an in-depth lifestyle and the other is a three-day diet log; it’s 16 pages of intake. I also give them containers for urine and salvia, and then I do a quantitative fluid analysis, a computerized assessment of how they metabolize their nutrients. I do most of my tests in the office, but I send hair samples to the lab. The results give an indication of tissue mineral content. I also ask for recent blood work or lab reports and any physician diagnosis.

Once I get all of the necessary information, I put together a customized report with their name on the front cover; it runs anywhere from 50 to 70 pages. I do that for every patient, in some cases I spend upward of four hours putting the information together, but most of the time it's about an hour to an hour and a half. Afterward we spend 90 minutes going over the findings of the report, and I give them my recommendations, and provide them, when available, scientific validation for all of the recommendations that I’ve made. The frequency of their visits subsequent to the follow-up consultation is dependent upon their condition, their ability to be compliant, and their rapidity of success with the programs.

I have a 62-year-old woman, she’s a singer/entertainer, and she has been suffering with IBS for almost 40 years. She had severe alternating constipation and diarrhea, was on multiple medications, including a proton pump inhibitor, and on cholesterol medication. It took me almost two weeks, but she’s symptom-free and off all medications. And that exemplifies my practice, because that is not extraordinary, that’s the norm.

For IBS, Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s Disease, 70 percent of the individuals that go to a gastroenterologist leave with major disappointment, because the medical establishment has nothing to offer. I can help them, and I’m 100% with IBS; I’ve never had an IBS case where the individual followed my advice and did not get to live a normal lifestyle.

I give people a sense of hope. I’ve helped people with diabetic neuropathy regain sensation in their legs. I’ve had patients with ALS… where the medical industry says, “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do for you” and walks away. My objective is to see if we can save their lives. I don’t know if I can, but I will work like hell to do it. My emphasis is on the individual, I don’t support the hospitals, the insurance companies or the pharmaceuticals companies; my emphasis is on the individual.

I always advise my patients to have a primary care physician. It’s important that they work with a primary care physician and if they do not have one, I will refer one to them; I do not consider myself a primary care doctor, nor should I. We need medical doctors to perform diagnosis, assessment tests, the physical tests, I often refer to MDs, DOs and Doctors of Oriental medicine; I may also refer to psychologists, acupuncturists or body workers. When treating patients, it’s often who you know that’s just as important as who you know; sometimes you are as good as the person to whom you can refer.

I would say that my favorite tools of the trade are making sure people have a plant-based diet. I am not in favor of veganism or vegetarianism, but they should have a diet sufficient in fruits and vegetables, and I believe everybody should supplement their diet with powdered greens, wheat grass, and powdered fruit/vegetable drinks. When they are necessary, I’m also a big advocate of fish oils and of probiotics. Everything else is used in a functional way, depending on the person who comes to see me. Every person gets a different approach. The whole concept of naturopathy is that you’re not treating disease, you are treating people. You are looking at individuals on the basis of imbalances, not on the basis of disease; that’s medicine. We are in the business of health.

Probably the greatest skill is that you’ve got to have is empathy. You’ve also got to have incredible confidence, you have to exude incredible confidence and you have to be a very good communicator. Foremost, you’ve got to be able to sell the program to the patient. You’ve got to be able to create an atmosphere where they want to come to see you and have to have a compelling reason to get well and stay well. It’s important to know your craft and to communicate it. If you can’t communicate it, nobody’s going to listen and it doesn’t make any difference how much you know.

It was a combination of conventional classroom and independent learning. I’ve got a conventional bachelors and masters, and a non-conventional naturopathic degree through Trinity College of Natural Health. I’ve got a master’s in nutrition through distance learning; and a combination masters in botanical medicine that was both classroom and home study through The School of Natural Healing. I’ve studied with David Winston, one of the world’s foremost herbalists, for three years I’ve also completed a myriad of post-doctoral training on premise at Harvard Medical School, John Hopkins Medical School and at Columbia University for Physicians and Surgeons.

I do over 100 hours of continuing education every single year. It’s my own compulsion, my need to know. I hold at least 12 certifications in various fields. It’s important that I continue to fill those gaps in my education that I feel are there. I also want to be the person in the field that can say, “Nobody has more education than I do.” Regardless of the sources of their education, I don’t believe there are too many naturopaths that can say they have more education than I, regardless of where they went to school.

I spend a lot of time analyzing my next step. I make annual goals and plan them well in advance of the calendar year. I’ve already made a number of plans for 2007, I know, in advance, what I want to achieve so it’s a matter of finding the right fit as to which programs are going to satisfy my needs. I’m extremely goal-oriented.

There were courses I was disappointed with, but I always considered that if I left with one or two good or new ideas, it was worthwhile; nothing was ever wasted.

To choose your education wisely, pick the areas that you most want to get involved with, the two or three or four areas that bring everything into focus, and then learn all you can about them.

Outside of the formal collegiate setting, most naturopaths are in private practice, so there aren’t a lot of opportunities for supervised training.

A lot of naturopaths want to be MDs and are overstepping the bounds of good natural health practice; they want prescribing capability, they want to be able to do surgery. The Doctors of Osteopathic medicine (DO) actually merged with MDs and became members of the American Medical Association, and DOs are now the highest prescribing physicians. The NDs that want to become MDs forget the roots of naturopathic medicine, to treat people through natural means, without employing pharmaceutical drugs or surgery. I’m not against the intervention of pharmacology and surgery in patients, but it should be used wisely, from someone who is trained in pharmacology and surgery.

I think the problem is too many people are looking at this as alternative health, when in reality, the alternative is drugs and surgery. If they don’t follow the basics and essentials of good health, the alternative is drugs and surgery; semantics should not be controlled by doctors or the pharmaceutical paradigm, as both have manipulated the language. I will not buy into it.

It’s growing. Medical science is failing so miserably. News reports have revealed that over 700,000 individuals are hospitalized and over 100,000 of them die as a result of pharmaceutical drugs each year. As medical doctors and hospitals continue to harm or kill their patients, people are going to turn more toward natural health.

I would say anywhere from $70,000 to $250,000 and up.

You should become a naturopath because you feel passionate about what you do and who you are, not because it seems like a good job to have; people become plumbers because it’s a way to make a living. I’m not a naturopathic doctor by profession; I’m a naturopathic doctor from my own personal ideology. I live what I do. I live the lifestyle and I encourage other people to be healthy, and I’ve had great success because of my passion.

It’s vitally important to market yourself. If you don’t have the ability to market yourself, nobody is going to know that you exist, and you won’t be able to help anyone. If you don’t have the ability to market yourself, you’ve got to employ somebody to do it for you. A well-developed Web site, directory advertising, organizational participation, public appearances, feature articles in local publications, advertising and health fairs may be a few avenues toward gaining recognition.

Editor’s note: If you would like to follow-up with Dr. Gero personally, click here.