Using Functional Medicine to Treat Patients

Using Functional Medicine to Treat Patients

SUMMARY

In this video, Dr. Dawn Frankwick, OB-GYN and a surgeon, explains why she adopted Functional Medicine and the Root Cause approach to pursue her life mission to help others.

Transcript of the video

My purpose is to serve and it’s easy to serve others.

When I was in medical school, I thought I would be a family medicine doctor, and then I decided “no, I need to narrow it down”. Because in medicine we have a whole lot of information and you want to be a specialist at something. So I chose OB-GYN because I could do something, I could talk with someone, think about their problem and this is how to fix it.

I can do surgery, I can do hormones, I can do antibiotics, I can counsel, I can listen. And that goes a long way.

Discovering Functional Medicine

Years passed, and I only had so many tools, so I started learning about Functional Medicine as another way of serving, another way of solving people’s medical problems. The problem was that my then-employer wanted me to do nothing with it because it didn’t fit in their model.

So I had this information and I didn’t have role models, and yet I knew there were other ways. I had a 25-year old Hispanic woman come into my office insisting that I do surgery on her. Immediately. “You’ve got to do a laparoscopy. There’s something wrong in my gut. I have all this pain in my gut and there’s something terribly wrong”. I simply sent her home with this: cut out wheat 100%, cut out wheat, and you come back and see me in a month. And she did. And she said that 80% of her pain was gone.

And it was just, how powerful is that, you know? As a surgeon, I love to operate, but it feels better when there’s no other choice and it’s what you need to do. Not if you know what I mean. It’s just, it was, it was a very satisfying interaction. But no, they [my former employer] couldn’t quantify it. They didn’t want me doing a whole lot of that, but it’s what helped the patient. So I just studied it on my own, and then was looking for an opportunity, found root cause, told them I just have book knowledge. And so I’m apprenticing under Dr. Rick.

Why Functional Medicine?

It’s been quite the evolution in medicine. We are taught to think in terms of body systems, a cardiologist, a pulmonologist, a gastroenterologist, but nobody thinks about the “big picture” and how they interact with.

It’s not that the doctors are bad; it’s just the way they’re taught and they don’t see how much they fail. And because you don’t see your failure, people leave and they never come back. You don’t know that they were dissatisfied or they never got better.

A Word on Root Cause Medical Clinic

Dr. Dawn Frankwick helps patients be restored to vibrant health at Root Cause Medical Clinic, at 1000 S. Ft Harrison Ave., Clearwater, FL. Root Cause Medical Clinic was founded in Saratoga, CA many decades ago by Drs. Rick and Vikki Petersen. The clinic moved to Clearwater a few years ago.

The medical team at Root Cause Medical Clinic is comprised of doctors and specialists in multiple specialties (functional medicine, physical medicine, nutrition, physical therapy, chiropractic, genetics, and laboratory testing) to approach patients’ health from a wider viewpoint while following the principles of Root Cause Medicine: tracing back the symptoms and disease of the person to its root causes, and treating these causes using the most natural approach possible without masking the symptoms.

Root Cause Medical Clinic Clearwater offers several health programs designed to address common physiological conditions found in America today: obesity, heartburn and acid reflux, migraines, allergies, celiac disease and gluten sensitivities, hormonal imbalances, skeletal and joint issues, etc.

Make an appointment with Dr. Dawn today by calling 727-335-0400 and take the first step towards improving your health and your life.

Additional resources:

• Functional Medicine health programs available at Root Cause Medical Clinic Clearwater
• A lecture on Functional Medicine by Dr. Mark Hyman

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