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VIEWPOINTS

Patrick Hanaway, MD - Senior Adviser to the CEO at the
Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM)

Interview by Dick Benson

As Senior Adviser to the CEO at IFM, Patrick approach. From a functional medicine perspective our
Hanaway, MD, also leads the organization’s COVID-19 Task objective is to:
Force, which provides practitioners with the tools needed to help
patients combat the pandemic and achieve optimal health. 1. Support the immune system.
Dr. Hanaway is a board-certified family physician 2. Decrease viral replication
trained at Washington University. Dr. Hanaway served on 3. Reduce symptoms
the executive committee for the American Board of
Integrative Medicine and is past president of the American Certainly, the public health measures to reduce viral
Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine. For the past 20 years, transmission are essential to ‘flatten the curve’.
he has worked with his wife in clinical practice at Family to Functional medicine practitioners are uniquely
Family: Your Home for Whole Health Care in Asheville, NC. trained to help those people who are at the greatest risks
After serving as chief medical officer at Genova including: people with poor diets, people who are obese,
Diagnostics, Dr. Hanaway became the chief medical people who suffer from nutritional deficiencies and those
education officer at IFM, where he oversaw the development who are faced with multiple complex chronic diseases. We
and implementation of IFM’s programs worldwide. He has know how to help these individuals.
been a core faculty member with IFM since 2005, he leads IFM’s role is to help practitioners understand how to
the GI Advanced Practice Module, and he continues his work with the SARS-CoV-2 virus in their patients, whether
support of IFM as co-chair of the Expert Advisory Board. they’re at-risk and concerned, whether they’re exposed,
In 2014, Dr. Hanaway helped develop the collaboration whether they have symptoms, or whether they’re recovering
between IFM and the Cleveland Clinic, where he was the from infection. We have worked to put together patient
founding medical director. He later became the research education materials to help clinicians work with their
director and now serves as a research collaborator at the patients effectively. We also provide resources to help
Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine. His clinicians in their business practices. Since the beginning of
research interests focus on evaluating outcomes of Functional the COVID-19 crisis, we’ve seen a 60% decline of patient
Medicine models of care. volume in doctors’ offices in the United States; as well as,
The focus of Dr. Hanaway’s work is to use his skills, obviously, a 55% decrease in revenue. We’ve also seen
knowledge and perspective to transform medical practice incredible growth in the burgeoning arena of telehealth. It
through education, research, and clinical care. In addition, begs the question, how do we help clinicians provide for
Dr. Hanaway is an initiated Mara’akame [indigenous patients in a sustainable way through telehealth?
healer] by the Huichol people of the Sierra Madres in To summarize, the people who are most at-risk for
Mexico. He holds community fires, leads ceremonies, and COVID-19 are those who have multiple complex chronic
offers traditional healing sessions. diseases, including: obesity, diabetes, hypertension and
cardiovascular disease. This is why we see it affecting the
Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal (IMCJ): To poor and people of color to a greater degree. Functional
start with can you introduce the Functional Medicine medicine provides the tools to help move individuals from
model to treat COVID-19? illness to wellness. That is our goal. Functional medicine is
particularly well-suited for this approach, in contrast with
Dr Hanaway: Functional medicine takes a unique “other branches of medicine” that work to suppress the
approach when treating patients. This approach allows us symptoms. With functional medicine, we focus on the
to look across the whole Continuum from wellness to root cause(s) that drive these imbalances that increase the
illness and back. We help patients using a personalized risk of individuals developing COVID-19.

64 Integrative Medicine • Vol. 19, No. S1 • Epub Ahead of Print Hanaway—Viewpoints