Born and raised in southwestern Pennsylvania, he earned his Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Pittsburgh, and then matriculated to the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, where he received his medical degree in 1985. After his first post-graduate year of training in New York City, he went on to serve in the United States Navy Medical Corps where he was honored with a Navy Achievement Medal.
His practice has been fundamentally clinical, but he has some experience with administration as he was the Director of the Emergency Department at Millington Naval Hospital and served as Chief Resident and subsequently as a resident trainer for the Northeast Ohio Consortium Emergency Residency Program.
Since becoming Board Certified in the specialty of Emergency Medicine in 1992, he gained experience with the process of teaching medicine as he has been a clinical professor of medicine for Case Western Reserve University and Ohio State University. In the 90's, Dr. Gabrin served as a Flight Physician at Metro Life Flight in Cleveland and as a volunteer physician he took care of patient in the Adult Medical and Early Intervention HIV/AIDS Program at the Cleveland Free Clinic.
In addition to his classic medical training, he has also been trained in alternative therapies and spiritual healing, completing the four-year curriculum and receiving certification in Professional Healing Sciences from the Barbara Brennan School of Healing in 1998. His experiences in the fields of emergency, osteopathic and spiritual medicine, along with his own personal experiences on the other side of the stethoscope as a cancer patient first in 1987, and then again ten years later in 1997, when he developed a second primary tumor of a different more malignant type requiring mutilating surgeries and intense chemotherapy have given him a unique perspective as both a patient and as a doctor.