Gilbert R. Lavoie is a medical doctor

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 and non-fiction

Non-fiction

Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...

 writer.

Lavoie studied medicine at the Medical College of Virginia and the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is part of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

. He is board certified in internal medicine

Internal medicine

Internal medicine is the medical specialty dealing with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of adult diseases. Physicians specializing in internal medicine are called internists. They are especially skilled in the management of patients who have undifferentiated or multi-system disease processes...

 and occupational medicine.

Lavoie has studied the Shroud of Turin

Shroud of Turin

The Shroud of Turin or Turin Shroud is a linen cloth bearing the image of a man who appears to have suffered physical trauma in a manner consistent with crucifixion. It is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, northern Italy. The image on the shroud is...

, the reputed burial cloth of Jesus Christ, for more than twenty years and has written two books on his findings as well as other original studies. He approached his study as from a scientific stand point and as a doctor and discovered in his research that the image on the cloth could not be a painting. In his books Lavoie claims that the Shroud points to the resurrection of Jesus

Death and Resurrection of Jesus

The Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus states that Jesus returned to bodily life on the third day following his death by crucifixion. It is a key element of Christian faith and theology and part of the Nicene Creed: "On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures"...

.

In 2004, Lavoie ran for the 1st Suffolk & Middlesex district seat of the Massachusetts Senate

Massachusetts Senate

The Massachusetts Senate is the upper house of the Massachusetts General Court, the bicameral state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Senate comprises 40 elected members from 40 single-member senatorial districts in the state...

 as a Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

, challenging Robert Travaglini

Robert Travaglini

Robert E. Travaglini is a former President of the Massachusetts Senate. He represented the First Middlesex and Suffolk senatorial district, encompassing portions of Boston, Revere, Winthrop and Cambridge....

, a six-term incumbent Democrat

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

. He lost by a wide margin.