Draft:Dr. Gladys McGary

Gladys Taylor McGarey, MD, MD(H), is recognized as a pioneer for the convergence of allopathic and holistic medicine and is internationally known as the Mother of Holistic Medicine. Dr. Gladys Taylor McGarey was born on November 20, 1920 in Fatehgarh, India, as the fourth of five children born to her missionary parents, Drs. John C. and Elizabeth S. Taylor who served their entire careers as medical missionaries in Northern India through what is now known as the Presbyterian Church in America. Dr. Gladys, as she came to be known by her many patients over the years, was educated at Woodstock School, which has been training students from around the world in the foothills of the Himalayas since 1854. During her summer vacation each year, she would accompany her parents as they provided free medical care, traveling through the nearby jungles, living in and working from tents, and moving from place to place wherever they were needed. In this way, Dr. Gladys learned the importance of providing love as one of her primary medicines for her patients. She continued to watch and work with her parents until, at the age of 16, she left India to go to Muskingum College in Ohio, USA and then Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. After graduating with her medical degree in 1946, Dr. Gladys became the first woman intern at Deaconess Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1978, she co-founded the American Holistic Medical Association (which in 2013 merged with the American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine to form the Academy of Integrative Health & Medicine) with the goal of uniting licensed physicians interested in transforming conventional healthcare into a more holistic model. She was one of the first medical doctors to utilize acupuncture in the U.S. and organized the first national acupuncture symposium. She established the Foundation for Living Medicine (originally named the Gladys Taylor McGarey Medical Foundation) in 1989 to bridge the gap between holistic and conventional medicine and helped to expand the knowledge and application of holistic principles through scientific research and education. Dr. Gladys Talyor McGarey also co-founded the Academy of Parapsychology and Medicine and was a founding diplomat of the Arizona Board of Homeopathic and Integrated Medicine Examiners. She and her husband William McGarey worked closely with Dr. Milton H. Erickson, hosting initial hypnosis discussion group meetings in their own home in Scottsdale, Arizona in the late 1950s, which led to the establishment of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. Drs. Gladys and William McGarey collaborated with numerous other well-known innovators who have played key roles in promoting discussion and research of integrative approaches to well-being, including Edgar Cayce and Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. Following a career in family practice for more than sixty years, she began a life consulting practice in 2022.

Dr. Gladys Taylor McGarey has received numerous honors and awards, including the Humanities Award for Outstanding Service to Mankind; the David Stackhouse Award for pioneering excellence in Homeopathy; the YMCA “Tribute to Women” Award in the healing category; one of the Top Ten Arizona Women of 1993; the 2001 Lifetime Distinguished Service Award from Muskingum College in Ohio; and the Native-American Elder Award from Phoenix Area Indian Health Services. In 2003, Dr. Gladys was honored by the American Holistic Medical Association as a Pioneer of Holistic Medicine, and in 2017, she was inducted into the Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame. She has spoken at TEDx, and has published a number of books, her most recent being The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor’s Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age. Since the May 2023 release of this new book, Dr. Gladys has been featured in major journals and the press, including the Wall Street Journal, Psychology Today, CNBC, and more. At age 103, she has caught the attention of and been interviewed by Deepak Chopra, Dan Buettner, and over 200 other podcast presenters.

Links to interviews and publications by or about Dr. Gladys can be found at: Dr. Gladys McGarey

Dr. Gladys Taylor McGarey, 1991 	Dr. Gladys Taylor McGarey, 2023

Deaconess Hospital, Cincinnati, Ohio Source: Cincinnati Deaconess Hospital