As a family physician, wife, mother of four boys, author, social media influencer, media personality, and speaker, Doctor Deborah Gilboa has made it her mission to inspire audiences of children, teens, young adults, and parents across the world about practical and applicable life skills to change behavior. Writing four books and giving advice of shows like The Today Show, Rachael Ray, Good Morning America, and The Doctors, Dr. Gilboa was more that qualified to bring her message to the Greater Latrobe High School where she spent the day with grades 9-12, speaking to them about how to get what they want, then speaking to parents and staff of the Latrobe and Derry Area School Districts about “How to Get the Behavior You Want, Without Being the Parent You Hate.”

Gilboa was first on Greater Latrobe’s radar when members of student council went to a student council leadership conference over the summer, where she was the keynote speaker. After experiencing her words and powerful message, the students knew that Gilboa had to share it with the rest of the school. With the support of GLSD’s new superintendent, Dr. Georgia Teppert, student council was able to book Dr. G. to come speak to students in grades 9-12 as well as parents of Greater Latrobe and Derry in the evening. Student Council President Sarah Fetter said, “We got to see first hand the impact that Doctor G has on her audience, so we thought that she would be a perfect speaker to bring back to Latrobe, especially since she’s a Pittsburgh girl!”

With her constant schedule, traveling around the world to different schools, shows, and events, it’s amazing how Gilboa is able to make time to do one of the things she loves the most, being a family doctor. She said, “I figured out that a lot of what makes people get well, isn’t at the doctor’s office, it’s their support system, it’s how optimistic they feel, it’s something, and we call that something resilience… I got really interested in teaching resilience and how we make people more resilient.”

Some of Gilboa’s methods seemed unconventional, but she managed to bring it all together and make it an important lesson. For example, she said, “This is probably one of the most controversial things I’m going to say. I don’t care about my children’s happiness. I want them to have the skills they need to be happy later. I don’t care about the happiness of my children right now because if I’m doing my job, I am usually the proximal cause of their unhappiness.” While this might sound alarming for a parent to say about their children, she was able to support it with what she says is one of the most important things for parents to teach children, resilience, responsibility, and respect, The Three R’s.

Gilboa stands by The Three R’s and brings them up everytime she presents because she says, “They (children) get the ability to make the world how they want to make it.” That is one of the biggest things she believes in; letting children make the world their own and letting them make the mistakes, letting them go through the tough times, and letting the parents allow their children to do their own problem solving because that’s one of the main things that people had taken away from Gilboa’s session.  

As well respected as Dr. Gilboa is in the medical and influential world, Greater Latrobe was beyond fortunate to listen to and apply her messages of acceptance and problem solving to their everyday lives. This could have been easily seen when many of the students, parents, and teachers came up to the doctor after her presentation for personal questions and tips that they could apply to their own life. Dr. Gilboa has definitely left her own paw print on Greater Latrobe for years to come.