EP140: From Physician to Functional Medicine Practitioner with Dr. Penney Stringer

In this episode, Sachin interviews Dr. Penney Stringer on her journey from working as a family practice physician to achieving her purpose of bringing healing to groups of people through a mindful functional medicine practice.

Listen for insight on following your heart in the flow of abundance as you help clients heal.

 

Key Takeaways:

[1:01] Sachin introduces Dr. Penney Stringer, a trailblazer and mother of two children. Sachin welcomes Penney to Perfect Practice.

[2:22] Dr. Penney Stringer started as a medical doctor and moved into functional medicine. After her residency, she worked in a community healthcare center outside Seattle, Washington, working with people on the margins. The clinic also had an acupuncturist and naturopaths.

 

[2:54] Dr. Stringer was a family medicine doctor. She referred everyone to the people she knew could help them: a nutritionist, a naturopath, an acupuncturist, and a counselor. There was also a dispensary. At the same time, she did hospital work associated with the clinic.

 

[3:36] All she had to do was write prescriptions. One day, she felt sick writing a prescription for a medicine she knew was harmful. A young patient with ankylosing spondylitis and bad back pain had been to a naturopath and had been given antibiotics and fish oil for a gut infection.

 

[4:08] The patient came back to Dr. Stringer and was all better. He didn’t need the prescription for pain medication. After being treated for his gut infection, his autoimmune disease got better. Dr. Stringer questioned how that happened.

 

[4:26] About that time, she was invited by a naturopathic student to a Jeffrey Bland lecture in 2000, in Seattle. Jeffrey Bland is the “grandfather” of functional medicine. She started going to the free lectures Jeffrey Bland was giving.

 

[4:57] The first lecture was all about the microbiome and the biochemical pathways. It was what Dr. Stringer had thought she would learn in medical school. She went to her first training not too long after that. She says the rest is history.

 

[5:28] Dr. Stringer moved to a new town in the early 2000s. A doctor was practicing functional medicine there with a patient waitlist of five years. A nearby hospital funded the functional medicine wellness clinic and Dr. Stringer’s salary at the clinic.

 

[6:43] Right out of her Institute for Functional Medicine AFMCP course in Boston, Dr. Stringer had a mentor, all the testing, all the supplements, all the patients lined up to see her, and a salary that she didn’t have to worry about. She felt like it was what she was supposed to do.

 

[8:21] Dr. Stringer says it was a blessed situation in every way. It was all insurance-based so patients could get the best care with two dedicated physicians. The doctors were free to do what they believed in. It was not regular Western medicine. It was functional medicine from the start.

 

[8:47] The town is a nuclear toxic cleanup site. A lot of the jobs are in the cleanup. She helps with people’s detox and hormone renewal analysis. Her first patient was full of heavy metals, just as she had learned in class. She feels like things are put in our path to see if we’re awake.

 

[10:45] Dr. Stringer thinks that the key is paying attention. If you want to learn about something, request it from whoever is listening and see how long it takes to show up at your doorstep.

 

[11:52] Dr. Stringer talks about her sense of presence. She says her dad was a keen observer o