Why did Dr Gundry leave Loma Linda?
In the world of medicine, it is not uncommon for people to have contrasting views and opinions.
The world of medicinal care only improves when people challenge one another and ensure that, when valid, discussions can be raised about certain medicinal practices and conventional medical advice.
While many of these discussions can revolve around topics that are grounded in fact, many parts of medicinal care are theoretical until proven otherwise.
This is why the world of medical care, especially when it comes to complex matters like our diets, has people like Dr Steven R. Gundry.
Dr Gundry has been around the medicinal world for most of his professional life.
Born on the 11th July 1950, the American physician has become one of the most significant voices in the desire to create low-carbohydrate diets.
@Getty
He has written many books on the concept of how many “healthy” foods are in fact dangerous, and also is a prominent backer of the concept of a lectin-free diet.
Though often controversial and someone who brings a lot of commentary to the fore, Dr Gundry has been someone people have listened to for years.
He is the author of the ‘Plant Paradox’ diet that claims that lectins, a form of plant protein that is common in many foods eaten today, are a major source of inflammation and is the leading cause of many forms of modern illness.
Over the years, his name has risen and fallen in prominence based on what he is talking about at that point in time.
At one stage, though, he was a part of Loma Linda.
When he worked at this prestigious University School of Medicine, he was a major part of the institution. However, he eventually left Loma Linda. Why?
Why did Dr Gundry leave Loma Linda?
Let’s look at the available information to get a better idea on what caused Dr Gundry to leave this prestigious medical platform.
How Did He Become A Doctor?
Dr. Gundry, Mikhaila Peterson, Saeju Jeong, and Alyssa Newcomb – © Guliver / Getty Images
So, Steven Gundry moved into the world of medicinal practice when he graduated from Yale University in 1972.
He did so by achieving a BA and then went on to study at the Medical College of Georgia.
In 1977, he managed to land his medical doctorate from that university, and he then moved into various forms of medicinal care.
Gundry became famous because of a patient he treated in the early 1990s. Gundry was waiting for a heart transplant to take place for one of his patients, a young infant.
However, like many transplants, things were prolonged and yet during that wait, Gundry found that the boy’s heart had begun to heal itself of the damage needed that required the replacement in the first place.
The situation meant that Gundry’s patient no longer needed to undergo a heart transplant, instead going through a much less invasive procedure to fix the mitral valve of the heart.
This story and the accompanying press that came with it saw Dr Gundry become a bit of a ‘celebrity doctor’ in the eyes of some.
He had joined Loma Linda back in 1985, invited to join as their Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics.
Over the next 16 or so years, he would form a strong bond with the group, engaging in more pediatric heart transplants than any other surgeon in the world.
When Did He Leave Loma Linda?
Sometime in the 1990s, Dr Gundry moved into being the role of Clinical Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Loma Linda. While there, though, his interest in nutrition furthered and he eventually decided to move into the world of private practice, focusing on the nutritional side of things.
In 2002, he began to work towards leaving Loma Lindaa and moving into the world of private practice instead.
He moved into the creation of a group known as The International Heart & Lung Institute, which was based in Palm Springs, California. Through that group, he would eventually move into nutrition as his full-time passion within the world of medicine.
It would appear that Dr Gundry’s main reason for leaving Loma Linda was to start focusing on the world of nutrition. By the middle of the 2000s, he was engaging in dietary consultations with patients through a group known as The Center for Restorative Medicine. As part of that group, which was part of his private surgery group, he provided dietary advice that focused on heart health – seen as his specialty.
Most of his dietary advice revolves around the kind of things that lots of us do anyway: eating grass-fed meats, eating more seafood and fish, reducing the intake of simple carbohydrates, and eating more plants and nuts.
However, it is his work around lectins that has arguably generated the most controversy for this well-known member of the medical field.
Why Did Dr Gundry Leave Loma Linda?
At the moment, there is no distinct information out there as to why he decided to move on from Loma Linda. Since he ‘abruptly’ left his position at the University, though, most assumed that there must be some controversy. However, like many people, it sounds like Dr Gundry simply felt like he had come to some kind of epiphany and decided that he would follow his own research to spend more looking into nutrition.
Given he spent much of his time doing surgeries on the heart, perhaps it was a desire to understand why he was doing so many heart surgeries.
The heart is, after all, one of the most important organs in our body – if not the most important – and keeping it strong is vital to a happy, healthy life.
While Dr Gundry has never openly disclosed why he decided to leave Loma Linda, it sounds like he was keen to head off on his own journey of education and discovery.
His has led to his books like The Plant Paradox, which is built on his ideology that lectins are bad for us.
While many argue that these claims are incorrect or impossible to back up with evidence, Gundry left a prestigious medical university to try and learn more about the subject.
By leaving to found his own practice, he took a huge risk that has both raised his profile as a medical professional and brought attention for the controversial statements he makes.
Whether Dr Gundry is correct or not is for more learned people to discuss; all we know is that why he left Loma Linda was to chase his new fascination with nutrition.
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