Charles F. Gebhardt, M.D.

I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but my wife, Jean, and I moved south after I completed my medical training. While it was our desire for a milder climate that prompted our move, it was southern warmth and hospitality that led us to make Albany our home.

It was my experience in Vietnam in the early 70s that started me on the path to a career in medicine. I was a civil engineering assistant in the USAF at the time, doing volunteer work with an orphanage near Saigon. I saw the devastating effects of malnutrition on the health of these Vietnamese orphans and I decided to obtain a solid understanding of human nutrition and then to go on medical school. Throughout my medical career I have specialized in medical nutrition and this expertise in nutrition has always been extremely useful.

Over the years, I have learned that my most important role is in providing reliable guidance to those who seek my care. My patients need help sorting through the mixture of good advice and misleading or even harmful recommendations found on the internet, in popular books and in the news media. They also need a lot of help working around government programs and medical insurance administrators that frequently interfere with good medical care. Despite these obstacles, I love my work. What I enjoy most is helping my patients to prevent disease whenever possible, and working to minimize the pain or disability brought on by diseases that they have not been able to avoid.

I do my best to constantly improve my understanding of health and disease, to keep up with rapidly evolving medical knowledge, and to treat everyone the way I would treat a member of my own family.