About
Meet Dr. Carmen
I practiced medicine in Albuquerque for 12 years, both as a Primary Care Provider and an Urgent Care Provider. After graduating with a medical degree from the University of Texas at Houston, I completed a Family Medicine residency at the University of Oklahoma in Tulsa.
Throughout my years of practicing conventional medicine, I had become increasingly concerned about the high cost and less than satisfactory results obtained from managing patients with chronic disease conventionally.
Under a managed care model, the only treatment options I had for my patients were either putting them on more prescription drugs or referring patients to specialists to get expensive invasive diagnostics tests, more specialized drugs or even surgery. Many times, after seeing the specialists, the patient would return stating that they were told that there is “nothing more that can be done”.
This was very frustrating to me as a caring physician because the health care system seemed to tie our hands. So frustrating in fact that I began a desperate search for a solution.
While researching options to help my patients regain their health and feel better, I discovered a health care model called Functional Medicine.
Simply put, Functional Medicine is a unique model of healthcare that identifies and directly addresses the underlying causes of disease by using a systems-oriented approach and engaging both the patient and practitioner in a true partnership.
As a Functional Medicine practitioner, I look closely at the myriad interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease. The result is a personalized way to address these interactions and move the patient along the Illness-Wellness continuum from a disease and disability state to the very healthful end of the spectrum, experiencing optimal health and well-being.
Thanks and Take Care,
Dr. Carmen
What is Functional Medicine
Functional Medicine plays a key role in the effort to solve the modern epidemic of chronic disease that is creating a health crisis both nationally and globally. Because chronic disease is a food- and lifestyle-driven, environment- and genetics-influenced phenomenon, we must have an approach to care that integrates all these elements in the context of the patient’s complete story.
Functional Medicine does just that and provides an original and creative approach to the collection and analysis of this broad array of information. Using all the concepts and tools that Institute of Functional Medicine has developed, Functional Medicine practitioners contribute vital skills for treating and reversing complex, chronic disease.
Functional Medicine addresses the underlying causes of disease, using a systems-oriented approach and engaging both patient and practitioner in a partnership. It is an evolution in the practice of medicine that better addresses the healthcare needs of the 21st century. By shifting the traditional disease-centered focus of medical practice to a more patient-centered approach, Functional Medicine addresses the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms. Functional Medicine practitioners spend time with their patients, listening to their histories and looking at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease. In this way, Functional Medicine supports the unique expression of health and vitality for everyone.
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How Functional Medicine Changes the Way We do Medicine:
Why Functional Medicine?
Our society is experiencing a sharp increase in the number of people who suffer from complex, chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, mental illness, and autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis. The system of medicine practiced by most physicians is oriented toward acute care, the diagnosis and treatment of trauma or illness that is of short duration and in need of urgent care, such as a heart attack or a broken leg. Physicians apply specific, prescribed treatments such as drugs or surgery that aim to treat the immediate problem or symptom.
Unfortunately, the acute-care approach to medicine is ill equipped to address complex, chronic disease. In most cases, the model does not take into account the unique genetic makeup of each individual and does not allow time for exploring the aspects of today’s lifestyle that have a direct influence on the rise in chronic disease in modern Western society; critical environmental factors such as stress, diet, and exposure to toxins. As a result, most physicians are not adequately trained to assess the underlying causes of complex, chronic disease, nor to apply strategies such as nutrition, diet, and exercise to both treat and prevent these illnesses in their patients.
Functional Medicine is a different approach, with methodology and tools that are specifically designed to prevent and treat chronic disease.