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Gary M. Weiss, M.D. - Integrative Medicine Expert
Gary M. Weiss, M.D. was born in Denver, Colorado and raised in Los Angeles, California. After high school, he was accepted into Northwestern University’s six year Honors Program in Medicine, a highly competitive program where students finish four years of undergraduate education and four years of medical school in just six years. Dr. Weiss recalls being interested in the brain by sixth grade, and in medical school, he took extra electives in neurology and psychiatry to continue his study of the brain.
The next part of Dr. Weiss’ journey took him from Chicago to Rochester, Minnesota where he was accepted into his internship and neurology residency at the Mayo Clinic. This four year stint was where Dr. Weiss feels he not only got the best formal neurology training in the world, but he also learned some very valuable principles from the past and present Mayo Clinic staff members. Interestingly, the Mayo Clinic is the world’s largest private practice. The Mayo Clinic did not begin as a medical school. Each individual patient was treated with the utmost care and respect. William Mayo, one of the two original Mayo brothers, stated, “The best interest of the patient is the only interest to be considered.” Research studies, insurance companies, cost, expediency were not to be considered at all. Dr. Weiss believes that this principle still holds.
When Dr. Weiss was at the Mayo Clinic, no patient was turned away because of finances. Dr. Weiss continues to believe that all patients have a right to receive top quality healthcare. The Mayo brothers brought one more important principle to their work which Dr. Weiss has adopted. The Mayo brothers didn’t invent everything. What they did was to study and learn what everyone else was doing to treat patients. They traveled to medical centers around the world and then added anything that helped patients to what they were already doing. They took the best of everyone else’s protocols to come up with the best overall treatment or surgery for their patients. This was the true beginning of integrative medicine: Integrating the best treatments known to man and using them together to give optimal treatment to each individual patient.
With the knowledge of integrative medicine Dr. Weiss began his private practice in Florida in 1982. In 1987, he also began working with, and ultimately owning and managing alcohol and drug dependency treatment centers in Florida. Using the Mayo model of integrating the best of different treatments together, Dr. Weiss' treatment centers also used spiritual healing techniques and treated other related disorders including eating disorders and codependency. Continuing his pioneering in integrative medicine and spiritual healing, Dr. Weiss' International Recovery Centers opened the first 12-step based alcohol and drug treatment center in Europe in 1989 in Cannes, France. One year later, he expanded the treatment at all of these centers to include chronic pain syndrome again using a unique combination of advanced medical and neurological treatment with 12-step based emotional and spiritual healing.
In 1991, Dr. Weiss met his wife at Senator Dodd's committee where both of them were speaking on behalf of children of substance abusers. They began work together on projects such as pregnant addicted women and their families and Dr. Weiss integrated his wife's long time expertise with children, families, and innovative programs into his treatment centers. This ultimately led in 1991 to Next Step's intensive outpatient chronic pain treatment program which utilized integrative medicine, spiritual healing techniques and all of the various treatments that are currently used in the Vail program. In 1992, International Recovery Centers and Next Step had the opportunity to treat many members of the Ojibway tribe from Canada. Using the Mayo model, Dr. Weiss not only treated these wonderful patients, he learned of their spiritual healing ways including the Native American Sweat Lodge which has now been incorporated into the treatment activities.
Dr. Weiss has continued this pursuit of the best treatments anywhere by keeping up with the latest breakthroughs in modern western medicine as well as continuing to study new areas of spiritual healing including herbal medicines, yoga, Pilates, and Chinese energy healing. Dr. Weiss currently has neurology practices in both Florida and Colorado in addition to his work with Next Step. He is board certified in Neurology, electrodiagnostic medicine, and integrative medicine. He is currently on staff at both the Vail Valley Medical Center and St. Anthony's Summit County Hospital. Dr. Weiss is a member of many medical associations including the American Medical Association, the Florida Medical Association, the American Academy of Neurology, the American Association of Neuromuscular and Electrodiagnostic Medicine, Pain Management Societies, the American and International Addiction Medicine Societies, the Sigma Xi Research Association, and the American Society of Integrative Medicine. He has published a number of articles including one in Science magazine regarding the plasticity of brain development. Dr. Weiss has presented research papers and lectured both in the United States as well as internationally. He and his wife Cathleen Brooks Weiss have six children who also keep them active. Dr. Weiss enjoys playing basketball, skiing, and playing and watching most other sports. He also has an interest in politics including actively speaking to elected officials about the need for universal health care and insurance reform.
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