For any individual not getting healthier with traditional medicine or taking medications to cover symptoms and not resolving the root cause, the functional approach may be for you. For Dr. Heather Christie, this approach has been the missing puzzle piece to her entire career as a physician; she now sees the results, resolving various symptoms and disease processes with deeper analyses into gut health, mitochondrial health (important for energy production), hormonal and metabolic imbalances, and nutrient deficiencies.

“Ever since my 20s when I decided I would become a physician, I knew that I would ultimately practice a more integrative approach to healing in my future career,” shares Dr. Christie. “Although I loved Family Medicine, I did not love the amount of prescriptions required for treating patients instead of actual healing, the ever-increasing bureaucracy of our healthcare system, and the lack of time to adequately address lifestyle issues. After some of my own patients started seeing Functional Medicine physicians and getting healthier, I began looking into this form of Integrative Medicine, knowing it was time to pursue. I left private practice in 2018 and began additional training.”

Today, Dr. Christie is a Family Medicine Board Certified physician with additional training and practicing in Functional and Aesthetic Medicine. She graduated from Tulane University School of Medicine in 2005 and Duke Community and Family Medicine in 2008. During graduation from residency, she received the Duke University Medical Center–Family Medicine’s William J. “Terry” Kane Award for Excellence in Clinical Medicine, awarded to one graduating resident per year. This was the first of multiple acknowledgements by outside entities of being recognized for getting measurable results in her patients during her 16 years as a physician.

 

Recognizing that it is the patient who must be actively involved in order to optimize and maintain their own health, Dr. Christie customizes a protocol specifically tailored to meet the individual’s particular and unique needs, including attention to core areas of diet, exercise, hydration, and whatever is needed based upon the patient/doctor communications, working with other physicians and therapists as required for a wholly integrative approach.

 

Dr. Christie shares, “I’m super excited to have returned to my childhood home state of Florida. I opened the clinic in February 2020 and we all know how that year transpired. I had to shift my initial focus from a physical space to online appointments. Expansion in Telemedicine visits from all doctors became a necessity in 2020, so this opened doors that I had not previously considered. I was able to slowly start seeing patients via Telemedicine in 2020 and finally opened my actual space in late 2020.

 

“My mission is to give relief, getting my patients feeling better so they can live full lives rather than being limited with various diseases and symptoms. I want to address and heal the root causes of diseases and support our body’s ability to heal itself, instead of covering symptoms with prescription medications and not actually healing the person.”

 

With a career-long history as a doctor recognized for leading edge results, Dr. Christie is now offering Functional, Aesthetic and IV Nutritional Therapy services. The IV nutritional therapy is as it sounds—the intravenous delivery of nutrients. This is a fast way to bypass the gut and launch nutrients directly into the bloodstream for greater bioavailability (the body’s ability to assimilate the nutrients). This form of therapy is quickly becoming a popular way to have nutrients and fluids easily entered into the body, with many protocols offered, including those for energy, healing, and nutritional health.