As a Clinical Nutritionist, specializing in Functional Medicine, a typical day would involve meeting with clients for initial consultations or follow-up consultations.

During initial consultations, I dive deep into their health history, their present concerns and complaints, and doing an overview of their nutrition and lifestyle. I specialize in Functional Medicine, so I then put my detective cap on, to try to work out what body systems (i.e. the brain, hormones, mitochondria, gut, detox system) are out of whack, which could be leading to symptoms, conditions and diseases. I then prescribe functional medicine lab testing to assess if those body systems are imbalanced. These tests are done in the privacy of a client’s home, so we go over lab test results in a later consult. I will also start the client on a healing diet and some lifestyle modifications, while we wait to get test results back. This consult usually takes about 90-120min.

Most of my consults would be follow-up consults, where I meet with clients to go over lab test results, create a treatment plan based on those results using nutraceutical supplements, diet, lifestyle, and mindset medicine. I also meet with clients every month or so, to assess improvements, revise their treatment plan, troubleshoot anything that is going wrong or not working as expected, and conduct retesting.

In between clients I would be writing up client notes, filing and emailing notes, treatment plans, lab tests, and sending invoices.

On my non-consult days, I will spend the majority of my time researching and learning more about conditions and functional medicine protocols, as well as writing articles and for the media.

Pros

I love waking up everyday to work with clients. I love being a detective, working out the root cause of their health issues. I love helping them feel hope again. I love getting feedback from clients when their energy improves, and their mood is calmer, and their PMS and bloating and chronic pain have stopped. I love hearing when my clients are pooping properly!

Cons

I do like to be organized, and I know keeping a filing system is very important to the client outcome, however, I’m not a huge fan of storing/filing notes, lab test results, invoicing, etc.

The other con would be when clients give up too early. This can be a big issue in the healthcare industry, especially in lifestyle medicine areas like Clinical Nutrition & Functional Medicine. It makes me sad when a client gives up too early because I believe there is so much potential healing, and if they stuck at it for longer, they would see great results.

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