In a collaborative consultation with Grace Gawler and Dr Bruce Whelan, the patient benefits from the best of both medical models. The Oncology Naturopath and Specialist GP draw upon 85 years of diverse medical experience to provide superior diagnostics and treatment options for the patient.
Team consults are powerful! With 2 practitioners exploring health restoration solutions, patients are fast tracked for referrals to specialists/surgery avoiding long waiting times. A win win for all.
Grace was a veterinary nurse for 15 years (overlapped with her cancer work) and this background, surgery, reading scans and x-rays, working with cancers in animals, provides the basis for her work with cancer patients.
During this time she became care giver for a cancer amputeee with a poor prognosis. He was a veterinary surgeon she worked with. He is alive today.
Grace has a specialty for collaborating closely with doctors and oncologists on the patient’s behalf and thus bridges the gaps between conventional and complementary medicines. This is not always an easy role to fill due to prejudices on both sides of the medical camp.
Grace also has the unique experience of attending consultation with her patients during visits to their specialists.
In these sessions Grace acts as interpreter helping the patient ask the deep questions and understand the answers; consequently she is familiar with all aspects of cancer medicine.
She has lectured throughout Australia, the UK and Ireland and has written widely on the topic with 4 books to her credit. Grace’s knowledge base has been boosted in recent years through the research required to interview leading scientists on her radio show, Navigating the Cancer Maze.
His passion for his vocation remains high with specialties in pain management, addiction and a broad range of physical and psychological issues including cancer medicine.
Dr Whelan quotes Carl Jung when I ask him about his way of helping patients; he answers ?Only the wounded physician can help to heal.? Defining the difference between healing and curing is important in understanding the complexities of recovery from illness.
Dr Whelan frames this within his own life story when in October 2002 he became personally involved in the aftermath of the Bali bombing that killed 202 people. He describes the impact on his family &? resultant PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) he suffered. However, after his recovery, he returned to medicine with new insights and understanding having been through a ?dark night of the soul? experience.
Dr Whelan has been a wonderful resource for our cancer patients during the past 3 years. He has also made the effort to travel to Germany? to observe Radiation Oncology expert Professor Thomas Vogl, performing TACE on an Australian cancer Patient.
Dr Whelan has worked with many disadvantaged groups includng Aborigines in remote Australia and with Drug Addicts on the Gold Coast.
He was acknowledged for his work identifying victims in the 2002 Bali Bombings.