Defiant Health Radio with Dr. William Davis
Defiant Health Radio with Dr. William Davis
Are health coaches the future of healthcare?
We all recognize that American healthcare is a badly broken system. Wildly overpriced, exploitative, with a focus on pharmaceuticals and medical procedures to the exclusion of basic issues such as nutrition, the role of nutrients, and the microbiome. Can we expect doctors, healthcare executives, pharma or medical device executives to find better solutions?
I highly doubt it. One of the problems plaguing conventional delivery of healthcare is that doctors lack the time, knowledge, and frankly the interest in spending more time with their patients, hearing about their issues, then creating solutions that address their unique concerns.
Enter the age of health coaches. A number of years ago, when I first heard about this phenomenon, of heath coaches playing a role in the delivery of health, I was skeptical. But over the past decade, as I’ve worked with health coaches, witnessed what they could accomplish, and heard plenty of positive feedback from the public engaging their services, my opinions about health coaching has completely changed. I now see them as part of the engine that will drive improvements in healthcare.
I therefore tracked down Sandra Scheinbaum, a Phd clinical psychologist who counseled patients for many years but then diverted her career into functional medicine and health coaching, bringing the unique insights into human behavior and emotions that came from decades of practicing clinical psychology, now applied to health coaching. Dr. Scheinbaum founded the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy that educates and trains people in acquiring the skills and knowledge to practice as a health coach. She is also author of several books including Functional Medicine Coaching: Stories from the Movement That's Transforming Healthcare, and her newest book, Your Health Coach Will See You Now available in April 2025 on Amazon and selected bookstores. In this episode of Defiant Health, Dr. Scheinbaum recounts how she made this change in direction and what she foresees for the future of this important phenomenon of health coaching.
For more information:
FunctionalMedicineCoaching.org
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We all recognize that American healthcare is a badly broken system, wildly overpriced, exploitative, with a focus on pharmaceuticals and medical procedures to the exclusion of basic issues such as nutrition, the role of nutrients and the microbiome. Can we really expect doctors, health care executives, pharma or medical device executives to find better solutions? I highly doubt it. One of the problems plaguing conventional delivery of health care is that doctors lack the time, knowledge and, frankly, the interest in spending more time with their patients, hearing about their issues, then creating solutions that address their unique concerns. Enter the age of health coaches. A number of years ago, when I first heard about this phenomenon of health coaches playing a role in the delivery of health, I was skeptical, but over the past decade, as I've worked with health coaches, witnessed what they could accomplish and heard plenty of positive feedback from the public engaging their services, my opinions about health coaching has completely changed. I now see them as part of the engine that will drive improvements in health care. I therefore tracked down Sandra Scheinbaum, a PhD clinical psychologist who counseled patients for many years but then diverted her career into functional medicine and health coaching, bringing her unique insights into human behavior and emotions that came from decades of practicing clinical psychology now applied to health coaching. Dr Scheinbaum founded the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy that educates and trains people in acquiring the skills and knowledge to practice as a health coach. She is also author of several books, including Functional Medicine Coaching Stories from the Movement that's Transforming Healthcare, and her newest book, your Health Coach Will See you Now, to be available in April 2025 on Amazon and selected bookstores.
William Davis, MD:In this episode of Defiant Health, dr Scheinbaum recounts how she made this change in direction and what she foresees for the future of this important phenomenon of health coaching. I'll also tell you about Defiant Health's sponsors Paleo Valley, our preferred provider for many excellent organic and grass-fed food products, and BiotiQuest, my number one choice for probiotics that are scientifically formulated, unlike most other commercial probiotic products available today. I'd like to make you aware of a new source for our favorite microbe, lactobacillus roteri, and a skin formulation that I designed that improves skin from the inside out. Sandy, thank you for joining us. You know I like to bring people with some unconventional views onto this podcast and, having met you and, incredibly, being a neighbor practically much of the year, I thought it'd be a great time to bring you on and maybe develop a long-term collaboration so that we can support each other's projects. So, as I mentioned in the intro, that you founded a school for health coaches, but you're a PhD psychologist. Could you detail how that happened?
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:Sure Well, first of all, it's a delight to be here. How that happened? Sure Well, first of all, it's a delight to be here. And I did start out even way before back being a PhD psychologist. I was in education and I spent many years training people to become teachers to help people with special needs in education, and then I became a psychologist, got my PhD, but my interest, which was we're talking back in the late 70s, early 80s it was in health psychology.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:I was always fascinated by the mind-body connection and at the time the world of psychology was based on a psychoanalytic approach, for example, and I was getting great results teaching things like breathing techniques, which I actually started out when I was in special education. I did a lot of workshops for parents, for teachers, stress management for teachers, for example, and I was incorporating these uses of what we now call mind-body medicine, approaches like breathing, like use of imagery, like how what we think about can have a tremendous impact on our emotional state, on our physiological state. And so I spent some time in psychosocial oncology where I was on staff at some local hospitals and I would go in and at bedside I would help people with not talking about their past. That's not what they wanted or needed, but really helping them with some guided imagery, with some ways to let go of pain, for example, or just being able to talk about the importance of being supported. So I then stumbled upon functional medicine and I trained with the Institute for Functional Medicine. I was actually the only psychologist to go through that certification program. This was in 2013.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:And I then added that to my private practice as a psychologist. I was seeing people who had migraine headaches, for example, and I was doing biofeedback and other relaxation strategies with them and then started to focus more and more on the impact of diet, the impact of lifestyle exercises, medicine. So I was this kind of renegade psychologist. My office wasn't far from the lake Lake Michigan. I said, let's take a walk and we'll walk and talk.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:And, lo and behold, they felt better. And it wasn't the talking necessarily, it was the fact that they were outside, they were out in nature, they were moving and so focusing on these areas of lifestyle sleep and exercise, movement, stress, relationships and, of course, diet. So I was then decided that I wanted to take this bigger and then founded a functional medicine coaching academy to train health coaches. But it was really all those modalities that I had been integrating into my practice as a psychologist, so I was helping using this the idea that food is medicine, exercise is medicine, the importance of this mind body connection, as well as positive psychology, which was what's right with you and not what's wrong with you, and then integrated that with functional medicine principles. So we founded a school to train and certify health coaches.
William Davis, MD:Has that allowed you to incorporate more psychological type strategies into the health coaching program.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:Absolutely, because it is so much more Well. Actually, the field of coaching evolved from humanistic psychotherapy, which I had been trained in. It was Carl Rogers, for example, the idea of what we call client-centered, so it's not like I'm the expert and I'm going to tell you what to do, I'm going to ask you questions, I'm going to really listen to you, and it's you in the driver's seat as the client, and so that is the basis of health coaching. So we incorporate that into the training and particularly positive psychology, the idea that we. What positive psychology is?
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:The scientific study of what we need to thrive, what makes life worth living and how we get there. It's having these, being able to experience positive emotions, being in a flow state, having meaning and purpose in your life, meaningful relationships, the sense of achievement, no matter how small that may be. And we get there with our strengths, referred to as character strengths. So that's really one of the backbones of our curriculum because, as somebody who is trained in this, then you will be able to go out to help your clients really appreciate their strengths, being able to observe what brings them delight every day. And so that's the researchers in positive psychology who have been really instrumental in helping people with this, and the cool thing is that it leads back to what's going on physiologically and so, as you are deeply aware of feeling joy and positivity and it's not toxic positivity where you're turning a bad situation good, it is really realistic thinking and as you experience that, it goes down to a cellular level, it's an anti-inflammatory experience.
William Davis, MD:I think that's fantastic because I'm seeing something similar that it's the social struggles that people have that seem to amplify or even cause some of their physical struggles, and you and I have talked off camera about how we know that modern healthcare is a disaster, and yet modern physicians are most of them are not incorporating some of the newest science and the newest strategies that are clearly very powerful, like supplements and microbiome issues. Tell us what you've been doing in your court, in your program, with those kind of new tools ordinarily neglected by practicing physicians.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:Sure. So we want health coaches to be the new primary care, and what that means is we're not saying replace doctors, absolutely not. We need our medical community. If you are having a heart attack, you go. You know, we are both close to Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital. It's a state of the art facility. That's where you would be if you have an acute emergency. You think you're having a heart attack. You don't want to see a health coach at that time.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:But what happens when you are discharged and you want to prevent a second or a third procedure? That's where lifestyle medicine is so critical. And lifestyle medicine we start with the basics, which is what are you eating? Are you moving? What's the stress like in your life? Can you transform that stress, your sleep, your relationships? But on top of that, there are really cutting edge discoveries that have to do with things like the microbiome I know you are so passionate about and it's your life's work now. And I've started making this incredible yogurt that I use this particular strain which I know your audience knows the ill, rotary and delicious yogurt. So I discovered that.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:And then our health coaches. They are not going to tell people, oh, you must be doing it, but they're going to make suggestions and they're going to inform them of the opportunities to take control of their health, and that might be by making yogurt or getting a special strain, or might be by doing red light therapy. There's a lot of wonderful research about the benefits. I do that every morning. I also invested in a soda, and there are many different versions that from the top of the line but you don't have to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars on all of this. There are things that you can do that are more affordable. And cold plunges the top of the line, but you don't have to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars on all of this. There are things that you can do that are more affordable. And cold plunges there's research on that and having the right supplements, because you know, as you and I know, our soil is not what it was when we were growing up, and so it's been depleted of minerals. So I take a ton of supplements, but I don't take them indiscriminately.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:And it's knowing what's personalized, what's best for you, and that's what health coaches do. So they're not the ones that are going to prescribe the supplements. The meal plan, make the diagnosis, but they work with an individual's doctor, often a functional medicine or integrative medicine doctor to come up with a plan often a functional medicine or integrative medicine doctor to come up with a plan. And then the coaches are the ones that help people live it, because often life does get in the way and they may have good intentions for things they're going to do and they just don't get to it that life gets in the way and stressful things happen and the coach can help them. They also help with accountability, because when they're like, oh, we talked about this, we talked that you're going to go for a walk every day. Well, we're going to ask you about that when we meet next time and that accountability is really critical.
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Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:Sure. So we have our curriculum has a big component of functional medicine and that is taught by the specialists in functional medicine. And then we have experts in mind-body medicine talking about those principles. And then the positive psychology. We've brought in faculty who are experts in positive psychology. And then the piece that I teach is eating psychology. That has to do with all the factors other than what your actual digestion, and even there psychology is important.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:But how you eat, why you eat when you eat, all the influences it is our personality makes a big difference. Actually, it's been said that looking at how somebody eats and what they choose is like a Rorschach test, which is the inkblot personality test. You can tell a lot by what someone's eating and their eating behaviors, our family, our peers. There's been a lot of work done that we eat, how our friends eat, the peer pressure to eat or not to eat, the dieting industry. So that's the advertising, the marketing of food, the food claims. There's also our culture. It is so, so important Our region where we live. If you're from the South, if you're from New Orleans, you might have an affinity to certain foods. We pair holidays, thanksgiving for many people. If you don't serve turkey or a traditional meal. It's not the same. It's tied in. It's so directly associated Messages we give to our kids. The stages of life are tied in as we get older. Not for me, I'm going to go out for every meal. Well, is that good for them, for their health?
William Davis, MD:But if you don't take into account their attitude and their beliefs, then it's a losing battle. Do you find your students receptive to this idea that they're going to kind of take the reins on such things as nutritional supplements and microbiome strategies and other modalities?
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:Absolutely, because it's a crowded field with supplements. It is very confusing, and every other day you're going to see a headline something works, something doesn't work, and people don't know they don't. They'll go into a store. They'll see aisle after aisle of supplements and most people get their education from the salesperson in the store or an advertisement, and so health coaches help them be discerning and they don't actually say here's a supplement plan that I want for you. Then they're acting as a dietician, a doctor, without a license. What they do is help that individual make that choice. They present the facts. They'd say here is a good resource for you. So they defer to the experts who've done research. They show the research, they go over it with these individuals, whether it is supplements, red light, anything else that someone might be interested in, and so somebody could do that themselves. They could go to ChatGPT or Google it. But again, how do you know what's trustworthy? And so, having a conversation with a health coach who asks them questions and also answers questions like how should I be taking this? Is it on an empty stomach, is it with meals, for example? How should I be taking this? Is it on an empty stomach, is it with meals, for example, and most importantly, supplements are not regulated so that you don't know where it's coming from. You just order on Amazon could be from China. I just saw there was a report that some of the whole foods, some of the brands that are organic when they look further, well, they may be coming from China, and so there was a great book that was a few years ago. It was described these vitamin factories that they have in China. So what is it if you have, like, vitamin D Well, they're all different kinds or magnesium.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:So that's where health coaches can dig in. They have the education and they will help explain to people how to identify a quality supplement. Has it been third-party tested? Does it meet rigorous standards in terms of manufacturing? There's a lot of fake ingredients that are out there, for example, and so that is probably the most critical role of a coach, and often people will come in to their coach and they'll have purchased supplements, often from, like, a healthcare practitioner, and they'll say you know, it's too expensive, or this is too much, I'm not going to take it. Or oh, I found vitamin D at their discount store and so I'm not going to take it. Or oh, I found, I found this. I found vitamin D at you know their big, their discount store, and so I'm just going to go with that. And that's where the health coach can clarify what the difference is and why the provider recommended these particular supplements and likes these brands.
William Davis, MD:That's great, sandy, because you and I know that when done properly, supplements are wonderful, they're spectacularly effective, but too many. And I know that when done properly, supplements are wonderful, they're spectacularly effective, but too many. And I can tell you, you and I know that a lot of practicing physicians don't make it their business to do what you're saying, that is, screen them, look at them for absorbability, quality, et cetera. So I think that's a great thing. I always felt that health coaching filled that huge void where my colleagues say things like stop everything, they don't work, you're making expensive urine, all that kind of nonsense, and so that's a great thing.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:Absolutely yeah. Either they don't believe in supplements and they tell people don't take any supplements, or they may say, oh yeah, you know, maybe take vitamin D. Or if somebody asks, hey, should I be taking it? Yeah, it can't hurt, but then how do you know what kind of vitamin D, what's a good brand? And that's where health coaches really provide that support, that education.
William Davis, MD:With this deep kind of focus on psychological health as well as functional health, et cetera, focus on psychological health as well as functional health, et cetera. Do you find that your academy appeals to a certain type of student younger, older, nurses, people with some psychology background, et cetera?
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:Yeah. So what is so heartwarming for me is to learn about our students and get to know them, and they are such a diverse group. We have people just out of college, just out of high school actually they're taking, they want to become a coach first. People are, maybe they're thinking about going into medicine, into nursing, and they get their health certificate as a coach first. We also have people in their 80s. We even had a 90-year-old. He was taking the course with his granddaughter.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:We have many people in retirement or about to enter retirement. They may have had a satisfying career. They may be having a pension, like a lot of. We get a lot of school teachers, former school teachers. Now they want to serve. They often may be. Maybe they went through a health crisis themselves and they found alternative, integrative medicine, functional medicine. They got better, they became empowered to take charge of their own health and now they feel it's our time to give back and they want to help others, and so they are very motivated.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:The wonderful thing about this profession is that you do not need a background in health care. Now we do get a lot of doctors learning to be health coaches. We get a lot of nurses, a lot of nutrition professionals, people in wellness like yoga, pilates, personal trainers but we also get people who have no background in health care. We have investment bankers, we have farmers, we have people who have been in retail, in marketing, stay-at-home moms who raise their kids and now they want to, uh, have a business as a health coach, or they want to work for doctors, and so it.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:There is no um barriers to entry and compared to because I get this question all the time well, should I go back and get a degree in nutrition, a phd or master's, for example, or health coach? So when you compare the expense, the time and what you're going to get out of it, coaching will provide that. Where you can really serve others, you're making a huge difference and it is more affordable and less time consuming. So you could still.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:Hey, we've had people who have been homeschooling five kids and they have a job and they're going through our program. It's remote. Most health coaching programs are now, and our school is eligible for our graduates to sit for the national board. Now, that's something that's important, because anybody can just go out and hang a shingle and say I'm a health coach. So if you're a provider listening and you're thinking, I'd love to have a health coach in my practice, but you want to make sure that they are board certified so that they have met the minimum standards of excellence and they've gone that extra mile to seek board certification, as opposed to somebody who just went to some fly-by-night program and calls them a health coach.
William Davis, MD:How widely is that adopted? Do you find a lot more health coaches are going that route?
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:Yes, most of our graduates. We actually, I'm proud to say, we have a very high passing rate. We have to take a board exam and we have one of the highest passing rates, so I'm real proud of that. And our students are highly educated. We have people who are PhDs in molecular engineering. As I said, many physicians have come through our program and those again who have no background in healthcare, but they are good listeners. That's the key being able to really be with somebody, as opposed to telling them what to do and coming in with an agenda. Like you know, you should be vegan or you should be carnivore.
William Davis, MD:Well, this whole idea that physicians and other health care practitioners, nurses, etc. Are opting to go the health care health coach route, what do you find about those people? Why are they doing this? What do they tell you?
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:Several reasons. So some feel like they are learning this to increase the value of this therapeutic alliance. They're maybe struggling to really connect or they feel like healthcare has lost its way. They may be part of a big hospital system and they are given eight minutes to be with somebody if that, and they want to make a difference. So often they train as physicians in functional medicine or lifestyle or integrative medicine. But then we have some who are already in those areas and they want to serve as health coaches for a variety of reasons. Some actually, there's somebody who's a very good friend and she's board certified in neurology, board certified in neurology, and she has given up her license because she feels like she wants the. She's somebody whose children are grown, she wants to travel and she likes the idea that I can hold groups and I can do group coaching and it's very satisfying. And then it's real clear in her client agreement that she you know she has, she had been a practicing physician, but she's not going to be treating them, she's not going to be diagnosing it, doing you know any, any prescriptions, and when that comes up she refers them to a colleague who is currently practicing medicine. So that is one model.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:Also those who are retiring a lot of retired physicians and those who are still practicing. But they wear two hats and this is possible where they can. Today I am Coach Bill and I am going to be leading a coaching group or one-on-one sessions and then another time I identify. You know in my patient agreement that I am Dr Davis and I wear that doctor hat and often the difference is to be really clear when you're the doctor, you have patients. When you're a coach, you have clients, you may have your first name as opposed to Dr Davis. So it is pretty clear in that agreement and there are lawyers who actually are specializing in helping physicians navigate that so that they are not accused of using health coaching as a way to kind of cheat and have patients across state lines.
William Davis, MD:You know, sandy, you interact with so many people from so many walks of life. What are you seeing as evolving in the setting that these people provide their health coaching services? Do you see it shifting online? Is it face-to-face, is it in doctor's offices? What's happening, what's evolving?
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:Yeah, sure. So that's a great question. I think that we're seeing more and more people liking online, so they meet with their coach online, and there's been studies these come from psychotherapy actually, and they're very old, even like with phone, before we had Zoom and Zoom could be HIPAA compliant but the difference in terms of that relationship really is not significant. In other words, we would think that you need that in-person encounter to really have that important exchange with somebody, and then it turns out it's not true. You could have a very deep conversation, you can move the needle, somebody doing it, as we are talking remotely, so most coaches will work that way. People like it. They don't have to be stuck in traffic driving to an office, for example. They can do it in their lunch hour. People have sessions like in their car over lunch and they take a time off from work during lunch, for example. And then there are many clinics who are in person and a coach can be working there.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:What we are seeing is more doctors seeing the benefit of having a health coach in their practice, and so when I said earlier that coaches will be the new primary care, it is that they will be the new face of primary care. So you used to have a. Let's say you're starting out with your doctor. You see the coach. Initially they're like the concierge. They introduce you to the practice, they answer any preliminary questions. If forms are challenging to fill out, especially if you're a functional, integrated man, you get a hundred page form asking you if you were breastfed or bottle fed, and people get overwhelmed. So coaches will help you navigate that and often they're starting to have you tell your story and often they'll begin to make lifestyle changes even before they see the doctor. So the idea is the coach is there, the front end. They're also there after the consult, after you've had your labs and after you've seen the physician, and then you follow up with the coach. It could be individual, it could be a group visit.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:That's a very successful model because then the community becomes the medicine, so to speak, and that's where they answer more questions, help you with. You know they don't interpret lab results, but they'll provide education and they're that voice of communication. They're the bridge of communication back to the doctor. So if somebody's non-compliant, if somebody, often they're monitoring remote devices like, for example, they're wearing a continuous glucose monitor, and then the coach will be looking at that data and they'll be reporting back to the practitioner any challenges that are reporting back to the practitioner, any challenges that they're seeing, for example. So it benefits both the practice, both the staff, as well as the patients.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:And for the doctor it really helps with exhaustion, with burnout, because the coach are the ones that are helping people, that the question that the doctor has to answer over and over again, for example, and they make their well-meaning but they just don't have the time and the coach brings that back. And what I'm saying is that the coach is bringing back bedside manner. That's the fundamentals of health coach training is bedside manner where you have rapport, you make eye contact. For that time you're with that individual, they're the most important person, you are solely focused on them and as opposed to a physician, who's got they've got to enter in the chart, they've got the next, they're running behind, they've got a whole waiting room full of people and so often that bedside manner gets lost and medical schools aren't even teaching it anymore. They're teaching diagnosticians and they use their seeing AI as the future of medicine. Well, what happened to bedside manner?
William Davis, MD:You know, Sandy, I pride myself usually in being able to foresee trends in the future. This one I did not see, Sandy. Being able to foresee trends in the future this one I did not see, Sandy. That is that health coaches will become an integral participant, an important player in the whole process of healthcare delivery in medical offices. So that's a really cool trend. Can you give us some idea about the logistics of your academy, that is, is there a qualifying examination? Is there? How long does it take? Is it year long? What are the mechanics?
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:Yeah, it is one year and then one people. When they graduate, we have an alumni program so they can still stay with us, they can still come to my office hours. We have mentoring. We can help them. We have a concierge service for, let's say, a doctor wants to hire a coach. We help that process or use them as a referrer, refer to them in the community. And it's 12 months. It is all online.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:The real heart of the program is our cohort groups, our live training sessions, so live via Zoom. These are 10, 12 people. They have a course facilitator who's a former student and they are learning to be a coach. This is how I learned when I was studying psychology, getting my phd small group. It was in person. Then, uh, you're the coach, I'm the client, we talk about something and it becomes very real, very powerful those who use breakout rooms often for that and then they get feedback from the course facilitator, from their peers, and they experience it in so many ways.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:We focus on lots of ethical issues, for example, which also come from psychology, like you know. Okay, let's say you have a client and they want to take you out for a date. Is that ethical? There's no guidelines in terms of health coaching, but we have a talk that explores this and similar ethical dilemmas that people run into. What happens and this has happened more than I would like to say.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:This was her first time being a coach and she was in a session. It was kind of like a practicum experience and just right off the bat, that first person she's interacting with says she wants to kill herself. What do you do? You're a coach, how do you handle that? And so we go over. We have role plays, we have training videos that show those scenarios and how you would handle it, and so it's based on webinars, as well as these live training sessions and what we call coaching in action, where we have a whole series. In the past we've used professional actors for this. They're playing clients and then we show that process from start to finish and training them in these particular skills that they need to be an effective health coach.
William Davis, MD:Wow, that's impressive. Hired actors, huh. So someone does the course for a year. Give us an idea what happens postgraduate.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:Sure, so they can choose to sit for the exam. They have to log so many hours of clients and then they are eligible to sit for the exam from the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching. And then many of them want to launch their own business as a health coach. Some are integrating coaching skills and strategies into what they're already doing. Let's say, a massage therapist, and she wants to continue with that, and then the health coach or a personal trainer.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:We have doctors who have taken that and now they know how to hire coaches. We have one she's in Texas actually. She used to teach for the Institute for Functional Medicine. Her name is Dr Margaret Christensen and she studied with us to become a health coach. People in her family also became coaches and now she runs a coaching practice. And so we have people who have done that.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:They've gotten together and launched programs, and many people want to work for doctors or they want to work in corporate wellness. There's a big need. Employees can get health coaching sessions, and so we have people doing that. We also have people who want to have a larger voice. They write books and blogs and they launch podcasts.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:So a lot of different things you can do and some who do it for their own benefit, they go through our program. They're not interested in becoming a health coach. They're interested in their personal health, the health of their friends, their families, and they're realizing that they want to get that into an education so that they can live healthier, happier lives. Because, without a doubt, those who go through the program say you know, I came in and I just thought I would just to become a health coach to get that credential. I wanted to learn functional medicine. But what they come out with is saying it was a personal transformation. And that's largely because of the positive psychology piece and the idea that when you are experiencing coaching somebody else, you change for the better, both physiologically as well as mentally and emotionally.
William Davis, MD:It's so cool that you guys are getting access to corporate wellness, because that's where you can impact so many people. Give us an idea, Cindy. What are the logistics of signing up for the course? Where do they go? What's the next step?
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:They can go to functionalmedicinecoachingorg and they can download an info packet. They can set up an appointment with one of our admissions counselors to see if this is right. We have two classes starting, one March 1st and one September 1st. We also have specialty courses that are available now and more will be coming out in the future.
William Davis, MD:Wow, that's fantastic. You've been busy.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:Yeah, I also have a new book that will be released very soon.
William Davis, MD:Tell us more, tell us more.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:That is called your Health Coach Will See you Now and it talks about the issues that we can't deny that are plaguing our health care system, which is really sick care, growing physician shortage, and how health coaches are really the key, because they are the lifestyle change specialists and to combat the epidemic of chronic disease, it is not through acute care medicine, it is through lifestyle change and that's what coaches do what's your anticipated release date? Uh, probably the end of March.
William Davis, MD:Oh, that soon? Yeah, fantastic Congratulations. That's wonderful. So we'll have to get you back to talk about the book in a little bit. We'd love to Sandy. Thank you for taking the time. It's so incredible that I can practically yell out my window, sandy, and you would say what do you want, bill? But I'm here to support your efforts because, as you know, already know, I think, a lot of the future of what happens in this disaster called health, using tools that are typically neglected by practicing physicians, like the microbiome and supplements. So, sandy, I applaud you. Thank you for doing everything you do.
Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD:Thank you for having me.
