1. What is your specialty and which UACIM program did you complete and when?

Internal Medicine

Fellowship through Bravewell Fellows Program, class of 2008

2. What is your current practice (or business)?

Like any good generalist, I’ve never been able to focus on one specialty. So,

I have three practices.

• I founded and continue to direct the Integrative Medicine program at the Simms-Mann Health and Wellness Center at the Venice Family Clinic in the L.A. area. There we treat low-income individuals for free using multiple modalities and models from groups to one-on-one treatment.
• I see primary care patients at the Southern California Men’s Medical Group where my focus is on in-network Integrative internal medicine and HIV care. It’s located in West Hollywood.
• I founded and am CEO of an optimal health program called Tack180 which designs personalized action plans for disease prevention and peak performance based on cutting edge testing and Integrative Medicine’s multi-disciplinary approach to optimal health rooted in the patient’s overall purpose. Through that program, I consult and work with NBA teams all around the country using Integrative Medicine principles.

3. How do you envision the field Integrative Medicine developing?

People are clamoring for help with an understanding of what they can do to stay healthy – more than healthy – resilient and able to pursue their goals. I see people grabbing onto data from wearables like FitBits and the Apple Watch and doing 23&Me – but having no idea what to do with the data. That’s where we can come in, but we aren’t prepared for that.

Many of us are still largely using the western medical model – disease focused, just using more natural therapies and complementary modalities. And that’s important. But as we learn more about genetic variability and all the -omics (nutrigenomics, metabolomics, transcriptpomics, etc), we could truly individualize our recommendations, focusing on prevention. That’s where we need to go. We talk about meeting  patients where they are at – that’s where they are. They are completely unique in terms of genes and histories and concerns and goals. Even the Mediterranean diet is not the best diet for everyone. And they want to be proactive.

So, I see the field developing in the direction of learning how to interpret all the data that is now and becoming available in service of our patients’ ultimate life goals.

How do we do that? (I sorta answer that in my answer to the question on global vision)

4. What is your global vision for integrative medicine?

 
I actually think the global future of integrative medicine is about personalization through access to technology. 5 billion people are anticipated to be connected to the internet by 2020  – technology is getting cheaper and more available and cell phones are way easier to have access to than land lines. Through smart phones,  I think we’ll be able to have accessible technology to check people’s key blood levels of important parameters on top of the heart rate and sleep and activity variables we can check now. With all that data, we can truly personalize and democratize what we do – for example, to be able to know how for one person eating sugar greatly impacts their health while for another it’s more about environmental exposures and for another it’s sleep. I see our role as helping develop that Artificial Intelligence to be able to impact billions of people around the world – to predict disease before it happens and to give people useful information on what they, as unique individuals, need to do or take or stay healthy.

5. What is your personal vision for integrative medicine?

I focus on Men’s health, so that skews my vision. For example, I don’t use the term “wellness.” That’s too abstract – and guys, in general, aren’t going to give up something they like in the name of “wellness.” I hone in on what MATTERS to the patient – that’s the hook.

So, my vision is that every encounter starts with – what do you want your health FOR – then go from there. The likelihood of whatever I say after that having an impact is much greater when it’s rooted in what the patient cares about in life as opposed to some general idea of preventing a disease they can’t really grasp being at risk for anyway.

To me. Integrative medicine is about helping patients grow. The opposite of illness isn’t wellness, it’s growth.

6. What interests you the most about integrative medicine?

I have always been interested in helping people, regardless of income, to live their most optimal life possible -

I truly believe that health is not the goal, but rather the most important tool we have in our armamentarium for achieving what our life’s purpose is. So, with Integrative Medicine, we can be helping people achieve optimal health such that they don’t even have to focus on their heath - they can focus on advancing their life.

That’s what interests me – equipping people for growth using the broadest set of tools that is appropriate.Of course, part of that is treating disease, but that’s only the beginning.

7. (Optional) Please share a story of a patient or situation in which you applied an integrative approach.

I wrote too much already, so I think I’ll skip this.