November 24, 2025 • 36 mins
To learn more about Dr. Aaron Hartman, visit: aaronhartmanmd.com
Dr. Aaron Hartman—triple board certified in family, integrative, and functional medicine—walks us through his path from military rounds and high-volume private practice to a more deliberate, patient-first model.
We unpack how evidence-based medicine lost two of its three legs, why publication bias distorts what we read, and how overlooked data from neuromodulation, nutrition, and environmental health can outpace costly procedures. From a $300 stim device that relaxed spasticity and avoided a $400k surgery, to low-dose naltrexone for neuroinflammation, to butyrate’s modern biochemical validation of an ancient insight, we connect research to real-world wins.
You’ll hear how he rebuilt clinic life around longer visits, smaller panels, and a foundation of sleep, nutrition, movement, relationships, and micronutrient, and then layered in precision labs, peptides, hyperbaric oxygen, and targeted devices when needed. W
e talk candidly about mitochondrial toxicity from common drugs, the gut microbiome’s role in medication metabolism, and the hidden costs of “that’s just how it is."
Virtual shadowing is an important tool to use when planning your medical career. At Shadow Me Next! we want to provide you with the resources you need to find your role in healthcare and secure your place in medicine.
Check out our pre-health resources. Great for pre-med, pre-PA, pre-nursing, pre-therapy students or anyone else with an upcoming interview!
Mock Interviews: shadowmenext.com/mock-interviews
Personal Statement Review: shadowmenext.com/personal-statement
Free Downloads: shadowmenext.com/free-downloads
Want to be a guest on Shadow Me Next!? Send Ashley Love a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/175073392605879105bc831fc
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ashley (00:00):
Hello and welcome to Shadow Me Next, a podcast where
I take you into and behind thescenes of the medical world to
provide you with a deeperunderstanding of the human side
of medicine.
I'm Ashley, a physicianassistant, medical editor,
clinical preceptor, and thecreator of Shadow Me Next.
It is my pleasure to introduceyou to incredible members of the
(00:22):
healthcare field and uncovertheir unique stories, the joys
and challenges they face, andwhat drives them in their
careers.
It's access you want andstories you need.
Whether you're a pre-healthstudent or simply curious about
the healthcare field, I inviteyou to join me as we take a
conversational and personal lookinto the lives and minds of
(00:43):
leaders in medicine.
I don't want you to miss asingle one of these
conversations.
So make sure that you subscribeto this podcast, which will
automatically notify you whennew episodes are dropped.
And follow us on Instagram andFacebook at Shadow Me Next,
where we will review highlightsfrom this conversation and where
I'll give you sneak previews ofour upcoming guests.
(01:03):
Today on Shadow Me Next, we'rediving into a story that
challenges so much of what weassume about medicine,
expertise, and the limits ofwhat's possible.
I am pleased to welcome Dr.
Aaron Hartman, a triple boardcertified physician in
functional, integrative,holistic, family, and
regenerative medicine.
(01:24):
But the thing that stands outmost about him isn't his
credentials.
It's the way he thinks and thecourage that one little girl
named Anna gave him to rethinkmedicine entirely.
You'll hear how his path waspretty traditional at first:
medical school, residency,military medicine, private
practice.
And then one moment with onepatient, a little girl, that he
(01:48):
and his wife brought into theirhome changed everything he
thought he knew about standardof care.
That moment pushed him into adecade-long search for answers
the system wasn't offering andopened a door into functional
and integrative medicine henever expected to walk through.
What I love about thisconversation is how honest he is
(02:10):
about the limits of expertise,the blind spots in
evidence-based medicine, and theimportance of staying curious,
even when your training tellsyou to stop asking questions.
And he brings so much clarityto what it actually looks like
to build a meaningful, flexible,ever-evolving career in
medicine, one that grows likeyou do.
(02:32):
This is a powerful episode foranyone who's ever felt that
internal nudge that says,there's more here.
I'm supposed to go deeper.
Please keep in mind that thecontent of this podcast is
intended for informational andentertainment purposes only and
should not be considered asprofessional medical advice.
The views and opinionsexpressed in this podcast are
(02:55):
those of the host and guests anddo not necessarily reflect the
official policy or position ofany other agency, organization,
employer, or company.
This is Shadow Me Next with Dr.
Aaron Hartman.
Dr.
Hartman, thank you so much forjoining us today on Shadow Me
Next.
You are triple board certifiedin functional medicine,
integrative and holisticmedicine, family medicine, and
(03:17):
anti-aging regenerativemedicine.
You I like there's so manytitles.
And the the amazing thing is, Ithink your journey goes well
beyond those titles.
Um I cannot wait to talk to youabout this.
Aaron Hartman (03:30):
I'm excited to be here and share stuff with your
community and take a deep dive.
Ashley (03:34):
Yeah, a deep dive for sure.
Um and you are also anassociate clinical professor of
medicine.
So, you know, you have a lot ofknowledge when it comes to
talking to not just patients,not just, you know, the average
Joe, but also studentsinterested in medicine as well.
So we're gonna approach thiskind of from all angles today.
Um, but let's let's go back.
Did you always know you wantedto be a doctor?
(03:56):
That's always a fun question.
Aaron Hartman (03:58):
You know what?
It's funny.
I remember being maybe insecond or third grade, walking
through the park with myparents, saying I want to be a
doctor, I was gonna do this,that, that.
And you know, at that stage,parents were like, yeah, that's
that's cute.
Um, I remember, you know, Igrew up in Harrisonburg, which
is a small town in themountains, the valley in Sandra
Valley, Virginia.
And our dot family doctor was acountry doctor, and you go to
(04:21):
the visit, drive out of thecity, the massive city of you
know 20,000 people, right?
And go his little office.
And he talked to my mom, listento her lungs, and then give us
some pills.
And I remember as a kid beinglike, I can do that, that seems
pretty easy.
So um, that was kind of where Irealized I want to be a doctor
because I'm like, well, lookspretty easy, talks to my mom,
helps us out, you know.
Um, and at super simplebeginning, but that's kind of
(04:44):
how it started.
Ashley (04:45):
I love that.
And you know, I think thatwe'll we'll learn throughout our
conversation that um obviouslyyou achieved that, but then it
took a major shift.
And again, it was from personalexperience, and and we'll
definitely talk about that.
But tell us about your medicaleducation journey.
So you graduate high school,you go to college, what does it
look like after that?
Aaron Hartman (05:04):
I was very focused.
You know, the purpose of highschool was to go to college.
I mean, ultimately it was toget become a physician.
So, like most students, um,went to um Virginia Commonwealth
University and graduated SumoCum Lada um from there, very
focused out of scholarship.
So it was I was fortunate toget out of college with no debt.
And then I was like, what'snext?
And um go to medical school.
(05:25):
And again, I was kind of raisedno debt.
So I got an Air Forcescholarship and went into um the
Medical College of Virginia andthen did my residency there as
well.
Because those of your listenerswho go to do residency, I mean,
you don't really have a life.
And so I realized that youknow, MCD was great, um, great,
great reputation, great clinicalexperience.
And so I had a social network,so I stayed local and it
(05:48):
actually had a pretty difficultinternship.
Their internship year was amedical surge internship, which
is 100% hospital-based.
So it's like it was one stepbelow a surgery internship is
difficulty, but harder thaninternal medicine.
So it was you learned a lot ina year, and um, and then did my
about the additional two yearsin family medicine, and then did
the military for four years.
(06:09):
And military was awesomebecause every six months my job
changed.
So I got deployed overseas, um,helped run a clinic in Germany,
um, um uh came back, ran aclinic in McDill Air Force Base,
realized there was no one doingdermatology on the base.
So um did start doing somedermatology training at USF and
ended up running the dermatologythrough our clinic there.
(06:29):
Um, they didn't have anybodydoing stress testing, so I
picked that up as well.
And my thing was always tolearn a new procedure every
year.
Got out, came back to Virginia,joined a private practice, and
this might resonate with some ofyour people.
Like that was back before whenit was uncool for doctors to
advertise.
And so I realized for ourpractice to grow, we need to set
up the first website in 2007,which was like a one-page sheet.
(06:50):
And um, that was before otherbusinesses started buying, like
health grade started buyingwebsites.
So we were actually in the headof that.
So now if you come to the localcommunity and you're an
individual, you won't be able tomake web presence because it's
owned by differentorganizations, which is another
topic, and then built thatpractice up to 10 practitioners.
The busiest that practice was,we were seeing like 60,000
(07:10):
people a year come through it.
So it's busier than the ERAacross the street.
During that, I decided to starta research company.
So I started Virginia ResearchCenter, and we ended up running
over 70 clinical trials throughthe center over 12 years, and um
started studying functionalmedicine, integrated medicine.
And some somewhere in thatwhole mess, I decided to get a
seminary degree as well.
(07:31):
So when I was in the military,I went to seminary and took me
seven years to finish thatbecause it was a part-time gig.
So so it took longer thanusual.
But um just, you know, if youlearn something new every year
and the open the doors open, youwalk through them and you do
that for 25 years and you lookback, you're like, wow, like
where's everybody else?
And this is cool.
And that's been kind of myjourney.
Ashley (07:52):
It's incredible.
And I'm so glad that you havehad this experience that you can
share because I think there isthis common misconception right
now that if you want to become aphysician, MD DO, if you want
to become a physician, you'regonna be pigeonholed for the
rest of your life.
You know, I talk to so many PAstudents and they say, or pre-PA
students, and they say, well,Ashley, I want to be a PA
because I want job flexibilityand I don't know if I want to
stay working in the same fieldfor my whole life.
(08:13):
And I think, unfortunately foryou, you're gonna have to
revisit that thought becausethat is not true.
And Dr.
Hartman, you're living proof ofthis.
I mean, you've had a veryvaried career when it comes to
your career in medicine.
Do you think that's I mean, isthat is that normal?
Is this something that you'veobviously had to work really
hard to seek out?
Aaron Hartman (08:32):
My philosophy was to walk through doors as they
open.
I'm not like a go-getter, likeI'm gonna like run, like I
remember saying, I'm never gonnado research, I'm never gonna
write a book, I'm never gonnaown my own business, like
because I don't want to do thatstuff.
I just want to be a doctor andhelp people and you know, travel
and have fun and all that kindof stuff.
But if you if opportunitiesshow themselves, you take them.
(08:53):
If it and if it's not hard,it's probably not worth doing.
So you need to do hard things,you know, and it's amazing.
You know, there's this thingcalled the 80-20 rule, the
paretal rule.
And it's basically basicallythe idea is 20% people do 80% of
the work.
Um, and that includes 20% ofthe people have 80% of the
knowledge or however you want toframe it.
The ratios change based on thewhat you're looking at, but it's
roughly true.
(09:13):
So all of a sudden, withdoctors, 80% of people are
following the herd or doing thestatus quo, and 20% will do
things a little different.
And then it's the 20% of the20% of the 20%, which is the 1%,
and those are the innovators,those are people who are
thinking outside the box.
And so you have to go from this20% to that 20%, that 20%,
realizing that by the time youget there, you're gonna look
(09:34):
around and it's gonna be likeyou'll be alone.
But a lot of people will belooking to you, and so it's one
of those things that um you haveto be willing to do hard
things, you have to keep onlearning.
But I think just realizing thata prepay, a pre-PA student, or
you know, pre-med, whatever thelevel is, you know, just be open
to new things, be willing to dohard things, be be curious, be
curious.
(09:54):
Um, be the first one there, thelast one to go home.
You know, I did more when I wasdoing my OBG WAN, did more
deliveries, did more fiducialscalp electrodes.
When I was doing my um my umICU, I did more intubations
because I was first one there,last I wasn't the smartest.
Um, I wasn't the the personwith photographic memory who
could quote stuff, but I justworked hard and that's worth a
(10:18):
lot more than being the smartperson in the room.
And so just be willing to dohard things, be curious, don't
stop working, and you'll beamazed by where it takes you.
Ashley (10:26):
Be curious.
I love that.
I think that's fantastic,especially nowadays in a world
where you know we're able tojust search up information
immediately in our hand oronline right there.
You know, it's all instant thecuriosity factor is fading.
And I think if we maintainthat, like you said, doors are
gonna just start flying open andwe're gonna have to walk
through.
Dr.
Hartman, let's let's talk aboutthis.
I'm very, very excited to talkabout this.
(10:49):
So many guests on the show,like you just did, share a
personal experience that ledthem to medicine, right?
In your case, a personalexperience actually opened your
eyes to the realities ofmedicine, the realities of your
profession.
And I think it took you on apretty big pivot.
Can you tell us a little bitabout this?
Aaron Hartman (11:08):
So, this was during my third, going my fourth
year at McDill Air Force Basewhile I was in the Air Force.
I was a captain during a majorat that point in time.
And my wife, who um is apediatric occupational therapist
who worked with kids withspecial needs.
So she'd have all these rarecases.
We'd have interestingconversations about the things I
heard about in textbooks thatshe was seeing every day in the
(11:28):
clinic clinic and where she wasworking.
One of the little girls, Anna,um, her foster home was closing.
She was 12 months old, and sheasked me if we'd be willing to
foster her, bring her in.
And I said, sure, you know,because of my personal belief
system, part of that is to takecare of the vulnerable, take
care of people who can't takecare of themselves.
And I'm like, I say I believethese things, and I should be
willing to do that.
So for me, it was verymechanical, to be honest with
(11:50):
you.
But in the process, I did fallin love with Anna and we started
the whole adoption process.
And what happened was reallyinteresting.
You know, she was a failure tothrive.
Her her birth mother didcrystal meth the entire
pregnancy.
She had a stroke before she wasborn.
Um, she was born in a drugcoma, and usually kids are there
for about six or so.
She didn't interact with theworld for six months, and she
was small, she was less thanfifth percentile.
(12:11):
So the GI doctor was like, hey,she's not growing.
Let's put a tube in her becausethat's standard of care.
Cut a hole, put formula in.
And my wife and I hadconversations about speech
development, about crawling,about neurological development.
Chewing and swallowing changesfacial structure development.
I mean, we have more, if youdon't chew and swallow, it can
set you up for sleep apnea inadulthood, for example, right?
So all of a sudden it's like,no, we're not doing that.
(12:33):
Like we have high hopes anddreams, we have aspirations,
like all parents do, or futureparents do.
So we said no to the tube.
And we were reported to childprotective services.
Ashley (12:44):
Oh my gosh.
Aaron Hartman (12:45):
Or for child neglect, yeah, because we
refused to do it to the doctor.
Said now, my wife, it's sofunny because I was, I'm a
doctor, my wife's an OT.
And we got investigated.
The nurse who investigated us,my wife actually shared patients
with.
And so they kind of joked aboutit, like, uh, this doctor puts
tubes in all the kids.
And they kind of joked aboutit.
And we had to like meet withthe nutritionist.
The nutritionist was like,Yeah, you're doing the right
stuff.
So it went away, but that wasmy first inflection point.
(13:07):
The system does not like itwhen you say no, when you
question the system.
And in the special needs worldwith kids with special needs,
this actually happens a lotwhere kids are actually taken
away because they have rarediagnoses that the system
doesn't understand.
And the parents literally notjust fighting for the kids, but
they actually lose them and haveto fight to get it's it's
horrible that to see if it'seven is possible, but it does
(13:28):
happen.
And so I was kind of watchingthat from the outside, kind of
sort of not quite from theinside.
But here's the major inflectionpoint.
Um, six months later, myindustrious wife found a growth
chart for kids with cerebralpalsy.
And Anna was in the middle.
So the expert didn't know thisexisted.
And so that was like the ahamoment for me.
(13:49):
Like the experts don't know.
What else don't they know?
What are the blind spots thatpeople think to be true that's
wrong?
People know not to be truethat's actually not true.
And so it put a weight on myback because all of a sudden I
realized I had to figure it out.
I had to be the person who'dget up at four o'clock in the
morning and pull up articles onnutritional therapies,
gene-based cell therapies, um,things based on SNPs, which are
(14:12):
small, they're basically mythtypos in your genes and how that
can affect so um drug exposure,crystal methyl policy.
So that ended up being a 10 to12 year journey of me getting up
ridiculously early, readingarticles, reading books, finding
experts, traveling out of thecountry to meet these experts,
and realize there's it's likeit's like Alice in Wonderland,
(14:33):
right?
You go there and you go fromblack and white to a color
world.
And once you go there, yourealize, oh my gosh, there is so
much stuff out there that we'renever told about, we're never
taught about, that we ignore, wesay is witchcraft hooey.
It's actually cutting edge inGermany and Russia and
Switzerland and and China.
And all of a sudden, thatbecame my practice of medicine,
is doing that stuff, not just mydaughter, but with other people
(14:54):
as well.
And that is what led to mestarting my practice, Richmond
Engravement Functional Medicine.
So taking everything I'dlearned with her and starting an
entirely new practice with atotally different um economic
basis of, you know, you have tomake money, obviously, to
practice medicine.
And that's been a journey aswell, figuring out the economics
of actually enabled me topractice the best medicine that
I can learn in a system thatsays, you know, one widget and
(15:16):
one dollar.
Um, so that was another journeyas well.
Ashley (15:20):
Incredible.
That is an absolutelyincredible story.
And I can't wait to unpack somethings in there.
Um, but before we talk abouthow your day looks a little bit
different now from what you weredoing to what you're doing now,
you mentioned something that Ithink is really important that
we touch on, and that's calledstandard of care or
evidence-based medicine.
And my two questions for youabout this are number one, what
does that generally mean in themedical world?
(15:42):
Like if you walked into ahospital and you hear people
talking about standard of care,what does that mean?
And then what does that mean toyou?
Because I have a feeling thatit might perhaps be two separate
things.
Now, Dr.
Hartman and I did not have achance to discuss a quality
question.
Quality questions is a segmenton the show where we review
interview questions for you, apre-health student, looking
(16:04):
towards your next interview.
But something Dr.
Hartman is about to talk aboutwould make an excellent
question.
When someone defines thestandard of care, what happens
when that standard does notapply to your daughter suffering
from a muscular issue?
It begs the question (16:19):
how do you define standard of care?
If you're asked this on aninterview, admissions committees
want to see your ability tothink beyond what's handed to
you, to notice nuance, tochallenge assumptions, and to
advocate for better care.
Your action step this week isgoing to be to identify a moment
(16:39):
where you did not settle forthe first explanation or the
easy path.
Reflect on what that says abouthow you'll show up in medicine.
Keep in mind that there's moreinterview prep, such as mock
interviews and personalstatement review, over on
ShadowMeNext.com.
There you'll find amazingresources to help you as you
prepare to answer your ownquality questions.
Aaron Hartman (17:02):
So standard of care is just the basic concept
that whatever's done in thelocal community, and standard of
care can be different inMississippi versus New York
versus California.
It's basically an unstatedconsensus.
Like what's going on in yourarea that people do?
Now, sometimes they becomestandardized.
Like when I did my OBGYNtraining, they had the ACOG have
a big book and they actuallyevery year put it out and it's
(17:24):
got like the protocols forabsolutely everything.
So they have their own statedstandard of care.
And it's basically consensus.
If you get a room full ofexperts, what's the consensus on
diabetes treatment andmanagement, post-concussive
syndrome treatment, chronicfatigue, whatever it is?
And so it's a consensus-basedtreatment.
We're following a herd.
Um, and so that's kind of whatstandard of care is.
(17:45):
The issue with standard of careis that if you're outside of
it, there's really no room forthat.
And there's so many things,people forget that, like with
kids, up to 60% of medicationsused with pediatrics are not FDA
approved.
30 to 40% of drug use in adultsis not FDA approved.
So it's like you get a drug outthere, like metformin or
aspirin or um COZAR, I'm lowSartan, and you find out, hey,
(18:06):
it lowers uric acid.
You can use it for goutpatients, it lowers TGF beta.
It can, it's ananti-inflammatory.
I mean, that's that's part ofhow it helps blood pressure.
You're right.
And so all of a sudden nowmedications get a wider, broader
usage that might fall outsidethe quote-unquote standard of
care, but that's kind of how thepractice of medicine works.
So it's consensus basically.
Um, and typically you have youknow room, a bunch of smart
(18:27):
people, and what can you agreeon?
The lowest common denominator.
So it's not cutting edge care.
It's okay, what can we allagree about?
Agree in.
So that's something to thinkabout.
Evidence-based medicine is notwhat it used to be.
It was supposed to be, therewas an article that came out, it
was either 89 or 91, I believe,in um British Medical Journal,
uh maybe, or JAMA.
Um, think of which one thatactually defined evidence-based
(18:49):
medicine.
And it was three legs.
It was um the you know, up todate, accurate um clinical
evidence, so research articles,etc.
Patient preference andclinician experience.
So the fact that I've had over100,000 patient encounters in
seven countries and fourcontinents means meant
something, meant something.
I've taken care of malaria inEcuador, I've taken care of
(19:11):
diabetic wounds in Honduras,like I've seen a flesh-eating
disease in Morocco and NorthAfrica.
So it's like I have a toolkitthat's a little unique, right?
The problem is now it meanssolely randomized, double-blind,
placebo-controlled trials.
So now when you when you'reroom with experts, like what's
the evidence for that?
They mean what's the RTC?
And then people don't realizethis whole thing about
(19:34):
publication bias, where justlike the standard of care to get
in a journal, an editorialboard has to say, yes, we think
that is true.
Let's put it in.
And so there's a publicationbias bias.
And then according to Dr.
Ioannis and PLOS, which is thelargest um journal, online
journal in the world, 50% of allresearch findings are later
(19:55):
found to be false.
So all of a sudden, theevidence we're looking at, half
of it's wrong.
And when I was in medicalschool, I was told half of what
I read in a textbook was wrong.
So all of a sudden, we've goneto this technocratic practice
based on research articles that,you know, batting 500 maybe,
you know, batting 500 is greatfor baseball and horrible for
flying planes.
And so, and so I think, youknow, that's where it's that's
(20:18):
where I think we've kind of gotoff the rails a little bit with
the evidence-based medicinething.
And evidence-based medicineignores population data, it
ignores um meta-analysis,ignores healing traditions.
You know, um, I could give youso many examples.
One example in ancientAyurvedic medicine, they
believed ghee could use, couldbe used to treat neurological
issues.
When I first heard that, I'mlike ghee treating neural.
(20:41):
That's stupid, that's dumb.
Well, fast forward, there'sactually now a FDA-proved drug,
phenyl butyrate, in combinationwith phosphylcholine, that's
being used to treat symptoms ofALS.
What we now know is thatbutyrate acts like a chaperone
to clear to clear out um lipiddebris in our bodies.
Now, butyrate's made in yourgut naturally by bacteria.
(21:01):
So if you have a good diet,fiber, um, you actually make
your own butyrate.
But nature's best source ofbutyrate is clarified butter or
ghee.
So then it's like, how didpeople 4,000 years ago connect
some dots to figure out whatjust now in the last three to
five years, evidence is showingthere's evidence for that?
And so that's where what I lovewhat I do, it's a lot of times
it's connecting those dots,sometimes 10, 20, 30 years
(21:23):
before the evidence does, andthen taking evidence that's
published and accelerating it,right?
Like using the ponds, it's aportable oral neurostimulation
device that was used to tradekids with CP in Russia.
It was available in Canada.
So I went to Canada to get it,and it's only approved here in
the United States to treatbalance issues with MS.
Oh, why can't I use why arethey using it in Russia and
(21:44):
Canada?
So sometimes thisevidence-based journey is also
kind of you gotta you gotta yougotta look at all the evidence,
all the data, and then use yourclinical expertise to figure out
is this true or false?
Because sometimes evidence saysthings that are false, and you
how are you gonna know thedifference?
Ashley (22:00):
I'm blown away.
I'm actually blown away rightnow.
That is so interesting.
Dr.
Harmon, do you think so?
For functional medicine, do youhave to be a medical doctor?
Do you have to be an MD or a DOin order to enter functional?
I'm just the reason I ask isbecause I'm imagining the fact
that your view of this is soincredibly well-rounded because
conventional medicine, you havethat education there, but then
(22:22):
you also have this functionalmedicine education as well.
So what does every functionalmedicine doctor have the same uh
background you do?
Aaron Hartman (22:31):
No, um, no, it just depends on how deep you go.
And obviously, I'm someone whogoes pretty, pretty deep.
Um I I think the basicprinciples are that with
functional medicine, thefoundations are foundational.
You know, diet, exercise,sleep, uh, meaningful
relationships, um, nutrientdeficiencies.
Like if you do the basics, thathits 80% of everything.
(22:51):
So you can have, you know,nutritionists that are are
trained in functional medicine.
You can have acupuncturists,chiropractors that are trained
in it, that can do the 80%, thatcan say, hey, you're eating
processed foods.
And oh, by the way, if you havepost-concussive syndrome,
omega-3 and healthy omega-6s canactually help your brain heal.
Don't eat trans fats, don'teat, you know, rancid orals.
(23:11):
Like that, you don't have to bea triple board certified
clinical researcher doctor togive that kind of advice.
So that's the beauty offunctional medicine is that at
the basic foundational level,it's really accessible.
But then you get to thenuances, the weeds where it's
like, okay, you get past the80%, and um you still have
post-concussive syndrome or longCOVID or post-Lyme, you got to
(23:33):
take illness or something else,the flu, and you've been feeling
crappy and hurting for years.
Well, then it's like, what'sthe literature say?
And you can use low-dosenaltrexone, which has been
around forever, to remodulatemicroglia in your brain.
Okay, cool.
I use that with a lot of myautistic kids, my pandas kids,
and it helps calm theinflammation down your brain.
Um, a lot of all all chronicpain actually has a has a
(23:57):
centralization process to it.
And low-dose naltrexone worksgreat for that.
So all of a sudden, as amedical doctor in the string, I
can actually take some of thatdata and translate it.
With my daughter, for example,she had really bad tone in her
legs.
And the standard of care forher at DuPont, which is one of
the top, the top pediatricplaces in the world, was to put
a bacclefin pump in her back, toput bacclefin into her spine.
(24:19):
Locally, here it was to do onthe spinal surgery, cut her
hamstrings, or send her to Texasfor a selective dorsal
rhizotomy, super fancy test.
They cut little nerves torelease the tone.
That was that was the cuttingedge stuff.
But then I knew from functionalneurology studies that you can
remodulate the brain withperipheral nerve stimulation.
(24:41):
And I was looking for aneuromuscular stimulation device
and I found one calledRevitative.
FDA approved, by the way, totreat circulation issues in the
legs.
And within six months, her tonein her lower extremities was
gone.
Wow.
And so she went from hunchingover.
So that $300 device is probablysaved a $400,000 procedure.
And when you realize thishappens all the time, you know,
when we talk about electricalstimulation, there are devices
(25:03):
FDA-approved to treat migraines,hitting your V1, part of your
trigeminal.
There are ones used fortreating different pain
syndromes, um, muscle spasms.
You know, professional athletesuse this to help build muscle
mass.
And the question is, how can Itranslate these data points to
this chronic fatigue fiber?
There's actually an interestingdevice called Quell, Q-U-E-L-L,
and it actually activates yourperipheral, and this might be
(25:24):
getting a little nerdy here, buthopefully your people get this
here.
Ashley (25:28):
You can nerd out.
Aaron Hartman (25:29):
Okay.
It activates your peripheral umalpha fibers, which go into
your rubrospin, the rubrospinal,the red tract in your brain.
The way your brain works in themidbrain is actually sends
inhibition down to inhibit pain.
When that gets dysregulated,now shingles, my arm hurts, a
phantom limb syndrome, the armthat's not there hurts.
Well, this device actuallyhelps remodulate that.
(25:50):
And I've had patients withprofaneuropathy and chronic
fibro pain, have it go away overthree or four months with a
little buzzy thing that buzzesyour leg for 12 hours a day.
So part of what I would do istake these data points that
there's data here, diet here,and diet to here, and then fill
the gaps in.
And that's unfortunately wherea lot of our conventional stuff
doesn't do is that we'll takethis data point for the
(26:10):
physiatrist and this data pointfor the neurologist migraine
person, but it won't connectthose dots and fill in the gaps
for your typical average personthat I see in my clinic.
Ashley (26:20):
That is so cool.
And actually it leads reallynicely into my next question.
So, how, in your opinion, howhas your day in clinic, for
example, how has that changedfrom when you were practicing
conventional medicine to whatyou're practicing now?
You're describing a little bitof it, but really getting down
to nitty-gritty specifics.
Is it is it vastly differentfor you?
Is it vastly different for yourrelationship with your
(26:42):
patients?
Aaron Hartman (26:43):
So it my day used to be when I was in the the
heat of it, when I was seeing mymy busiest year, I saw um just
slightly below 6,000 patients umin a year.
So for those people out there,you know, that's a lot of
people.
I was getting to the hospital.
Um the I think the standardphysician sees maybe three,
4,500 is considered a lot,right?
(27:04):
So um I got to the hospital atsix o'clock in the morning.
I did rounds on my admissionsum overnight, followed with my
my my existing patients, wouldthen go to the clinic at eight,
um, eight till five in theclinic seeing people, hospital
follow-ups.
Um, if needed to go back to thehospital, see someone in the
ICU, I either go during lunchbreak or at the end of the day.
I typically get back home aboutsix, six o'clock.
(27:26):
And I did that um five days aweek.
And then the every fourth umweekend I was on call.
So I was working through theweekend.
And every Tuesday night, I wason call, so I did it eight to
eight.
So um so I did that for youknow from 2007 until about 20 um
22.
So that's and that's a stay,that's a standard good
old-fashioned family medicinekind of practice, right?
(27:48):
On top of that, I was doing myreading and research, and and
actually in 2016 is when Istarted my functional practice.
So that's when I was doing thatas well at that time.
What's it look like now?
Um now at that point in time, Iwas also getting up at four
o'clock in the morning to readthese stuff.
Now I get up at 6, 6:30 in themorning, um, have my coffee,
read a little bit, um, go to thegym.
Clink starts at 8:30.
(28:09):
Um, I go 8:30 to 12.
I have a two-hour break between12 and 2, and then see patients
from 2 to 4.
So, you know, a pretty light,not big, busy day.
Um, I have Wednesdays and triesoff for admin time.
So when I read that's when Iresearch my patients now.
I'm not still not stealing frommy sleep anymore because sleep
is the super drug.
And so when I was young, I wasI was told and believed that
(28:32):
I'll sleep when I die.
And now that I'm older and knowmore, I'm like, uh not sleeping
will kill me.
So increase my risk for cancerand diabetes and all kinds of
stuff.
Don't listen to that residentsout there.
You gotta work hard, you gottanot sleep.
But um, and so it's totallydifferent now.
Um I I currently I used to takemy patient impalement at one
point in time was right at 2800patients.
(28:53):
Now it's 300.
Um, an intake for me is twohours.
unknown (28:57):
Wow.
Aaron Hartman (28:58):
So I will do an intake two hours, um, order a
bunch of fancy labs, et cetera.
FOP is an hour and 15 minutes,and a routine visit is 45
minutes.
So instead of being 10 to 12minutes, I have 45 minutes
routinely with a patient.
Sometimes short, sometimes areally short 30 minutes, you
know.
So it's vastly different.
But it's interesting.
I have patients I've beenworking with for years, and it's
(29:20):
and I did this in primary carebecause I was intentive and I
listened to people and you seethem a lot, but you you get to
know people's story a lotbetter.
And I can give you a storyabout my wife, actually.
Um it's funny what you learned.
She was an OT and she umdeveloped really bad um anxiety
in grad school, almost droppedout, got anxious, depressed,
just felt super off.
(29:40):
Ended up graduating, gotstraight at ACE like all the
years, and grad school did well.
When I met her, I was kind oflike, you know, I remember
hearing her story and be like,suck it up.
Like that's just what we do.
We work hard.
Um, she's ended up developing acouple of health issues, mast
cell issues, chronic fatigue,fibro, had really bad chronic
fatigue for five years.
15 years into our marriage.
Because I'm a very attentivehusband.
(30:02):
I'm glad you're laughing, notscowling.
Realized her trigger for thishealth crisis was an anatomy lab
in grad school where she wasexposed to formaldehyde for six
months straight.
Whoa.
Fromaldehyde is a neurotoxin.
It binds to your proteins andchanges the conformation.
That's how it preserves stuff.
(30:22):
And it was, it took me 15 yearsto figure that out.
But part of the functionalmedicine thing is realizing how
the environment affects herhealth.
So that one data point led toher health issues for 15 plus
years.
And that was just one thingthat my my this alternative
medicine, functional medicine,has helped me realize that
environment is just as importantas the food you eat.
(30:42):
It's just as important as thepeople you're around, just as
important the medications you doand don't take.
30% of all pharmaceutical drugsare mitochondrial toxicants.
Whoa.
Just think about that.
(31:03):
And half of all drugs areactually detoxified or processed
out of our bodies by our gutmicrobiome.
So it's two basic functionalmedicine foundational things.
The idea of mitochondrialtoxicity and gut microbiome that
comes together with traditionalmedicine is ignored by the
system, a blind spot, if youwill.
Ashley (31:23):
Wow.
Again, mind blown.
It's like like fireworks overhere, like the one one thing and
then the next.
That is, I'm glad you mentionedsome of these things because
you have a blog that we can findon Aaron Hartman MD.com,
amongst a bunch of other thingsthat we're going to talk about
in a second.
And you you dive into some ofthese things that people might
not know about.
Um, formaldehyde.
(31:43):
Obviously, we know not to drinkit, but we didn't really know
what else we need not to do withit.
Um, mold.
You talk a lot about mold andsome of the things maybe people
need to start thinking about.
Um, that can be found in yourblog, which we're gonna talk
about in a second.
But as our as our last questionbefore we wrap up, especially
as a parent physician, you'verefused to accept that's just
how it is.
(32:04):
You know, that phrase, that'sjust how it is.
That you that's unacceptable toyou as an answer.
If patients or clinicians arefeeling this way right now, with
their own health challenges orwith the health challenges in
their patients, what shouldtheir next step be?
Aaron Hartman (32:20):
Um, you need to research, don't give up, don't
accept the status quo.
Um, answers were if you lookfor the answers, you will find
them, you know, or theysometimes they actually, if they
find you, to be honest withyou, it's don't give up.
And so I actually was on apodcast with a an ultra-marathon
runner in New Zealand.
unknown (32:37):
Wow.
Aaron Hartman (32:37):
Who like was the first woman to like run 150
miles in some random desertsomewhere.
So like super motivated, supermindset oriented, not a um
doctor, not a clinician, just asuper athlete.
And her mother had a stroke,and her mother later got
lymphoma.
And her mother should have hermother's still alive now.
She should have been dead 15years ago.
And she did not accept what NewZealand told her that we can't
(33:00):
help your mom's stroke, figuredout about hyperbaric mess and
got a hyperbaric chamber,figured out peptides.
And her mom, within threeyears, 100% recovered from her
stroke.
She should have passed awayfrom.
Five years later, um, they hadlesions in her brain.
They actually happened to be uman intro cranial lymphoma.
Again, she figured out somestuff, um, hyperbaric um
ketogenic diets.
(33:21):
It's a lot of interestingliterature on cancer is a
metabolic disease.
There's a whole book on it.
And so she found thisinformation, and her mom's 15
years into it, thriving, doingwell.
And so, and this was someonewho's not medical.
So, part of her story that wasjust impactful to me is you
might feel like, how do you dothis?
You can do it too.
And so I wouldn't give up.
And the reality is justresearch, find stuff.
(33:41):
It's amazing.
One path leads to another.
I started my functionalmedicine training, and then one
of the one of the lecturers wasTatis Karazian, probably the top
functional neurologist in theworld, him and Dr.
Brock.
And I spent a year studyingfunctional neurology, which is
how you can look at a patient,how they walk, and figure out
which part of the brain's messedup, and then how you can
actually get the brain to cellphenol repair using physical and
(34:01):
electrical modalities, thewhole field of medicine out
there.
And so once you start lookingat things, you'll find you gut
microbiome stuff, hormones,environmental toxins.
You know, I have a textbook ofclinical environmental medicine
sitting right there.
It's a book about how theenvironment can affect your
health.
And so when you find thosethings, get your library
together and put them in yourbooks to read.
It might not be anytime soonbecause you're in in school or
(34:22):
whatnot, but start collectingthe books you want to read.
And it's amazing.
One thing leads to another,leads to another.
Um, unfortunately, in our boardcertification um siloed
training training world, we takethe inquisitive inquisitiveness
and the curiosity of students,and we kind of like eliminate it
when you finish.
I remember, haha, you'llappreciate this.
(34:42):
I remember the last semester ofmy residency training, my first
one, talking to my cousin.
I read all the textbooks.
I I got like 97% on my boardsearch.
So it's like I was a top threepercentile.
I remember saying to him, I'velearned everything, I've
mastered medicine.
And he looked at me and it'slike, Hartman, like what's your
no?
And he, you know, and Iremember thinking, you just
don't know, young lad, how smartand brilliant I am.
(35:04):
And um, in hindsight, I was anidiot.
Like now I'm like, I don't Itell people, I'll you know,
Ashley, I don't know what I'mdoing.
Like, I'm still practicing, I'mstill figuring stuff out.
And so it's interesting how thesystem kind of beats that out
of us.
Don't let it beat it out ofyou.
Stay, stay curious, um, keeplearning, never and never, ever,
ever give up on yourself oryour loved ones because the
(35:25):
system will.
Ashley (35:27):
That's so true.
Dr.
Aaron Hartman of Aaron HartmanMD.com.
Uh, we mentioned your blog onthere.
There's a whole bunch ofawesome, really, really awesome
things.
Your podcast, which is made forhealth, definitely check it
out.
You links to your YouTubevideos are there.
Um, and then your book,Uncurable, from hopeless
diagnosis to defying all odds.
And that's uncurable.
(35:48):
And this is going to be a greatnext step if this conversation
is really resonating with youright now.
Um, it's an amazing book.
It's available on his website,it's also available on Amazon.
Please check it out, Dr.
Hartman.
It has been the most funtalking to you today.
Thank you so much.
Aaron Hartman (36:05):
So I appreciate it.
Hopefully, this was helpful toyour audience.
Ashley (36:08):
Thank you so very much for listening to this episode of
Shadow Me Next.
If you liked this episode, orif you think it could be useful
for a friend, please subscribeand invite them to join us next
Monday.
As always, if you have anyquestions, let me know on
Facebook or Instagram.
Access you want, stories youneed, you're always invited to
Shadow Me Next.
Hello and welcome to Shadow Me Next, a podcast where
I take you into and behind thescenes of the medical world to
provide you with a deeperunderstanding of the human side
of medicine.
I'm Ashley, a physicianassistant, medical editor,
clinical preceptor, and thecreator of Shadow Me Next.
It is my pleasure to introduceyou to incredible members of the
(00:22):
healthcare field and uncovertheir unique stories, the joys
and challenges they face, andwhat drives them in their
careers.
It's access you want andstories you need.
Whether you're a pre-healthstudent or simply curious about
the healthcare field, I inviteyou to join me as we take a
conversational and personal lookinto the lives and minds of
(00:43):
leaders in medicine.
I don't want you to miss asingle one of these
conversations.
So make sure that you subscribeto this podcast, which will
automatically notify you whennew episodes are dropped.
And follow us on Instagram andFacebook at Shadow Me Next,
where we will review highlightsfrom this conversation and where
I'll give you sneak previews ofour upcoming guests.
(01:03):
Today on Shadow Me Next, we'rediving into a story that
challenges so much of what weassume about medicine,
expertise, and the limits ofwhat's possible.
I am pleased to welcome Dr.
Aaron Hartman, a triple boardcertified physician in
functional, integrative,holistic, family, and
regenerative medicine.
(01:24):
But the thing that stands outmost about him isn't his
credentials.
It's the way he thinks and thecourage that one little girl
named Anna gave him to rethinkmedicine entirely.
You'll hear how his path waspretty traditional at first:
medical school, residency,military medicine, private
practice.
And then one moment with onepatient, a little girl, that he
(01:48):
and his wife brought into theirhome changed everything he
thought he knew about standardof care.
That moment pushed him into adecade-long search for answers
the system wasn't offering andopened a door into functional
and integrative medicine henever expected to walk through.
What I love about thisconversation is how honest he is
(02:10):
about the limits of expertise,the blind spots in
evidence-based medicine, and theimportance of staying curious,
even when your training tellsyou to stop asking questions.
And he brings so much clarityto what it actually looks like
to build a meaningful, flexible,ever-evolving career in
medicine, one that grows likeyou do.
(02:32):
This is a powerful episode foranyone who's ever felt that
internal nudge that says,there's more here.
I'm supposed to go deeper.
Please keep in mind that thecontent of this podcast is
intended for informational andentertainment purposes only and
should not be considered asprofessional medical advice.
The views and opinionsexpressed in this podcast are
(02:55):
those of the host and guests anddo not necessarily reflect the
official policy or position ofany other agency, organization,
employer, or company.
This is Shadow Me Next with Dr.
Aaron Hartman.
Dr.
Hartman, thank you so much forjoining us today on Shadow Me
Next.
You are triple board certifiedin functional medicine,
integrative and holisticmedicine, family medicine, and
(03:17):
anti-aging regenerativemedicine.
You I like there's so manytitles.
And the the amazing thing is, Ithink your journey goes well
beyond those titles.
Um I cannot wait to talk to youabout this.
Aaron Hartman (03:30):
I'm excited to be here and share stuff with your
community and take a deep dive.
Ashley (03:34):
Yeah, a deep dive for sure.
Um and you are also anassociate clinical professor of
medicine.
So, you know, you have a lot ofknowledge when it comes to
talking to not just patients,not just, you know, the average
Joe, but also studentsinterested in medicine as well.
So we're gonna approach thiskind of from all angles today.
Um, but let's let's go back.
Did you always know you wantedto be a doctor?
(03:56):
That's always a fun question.
Aaron Hartman (03:58):
You know what?
It's funny.
I remember being maybe insecond or third grade, walking
through the park with myparents, saying I want to be a
doctor, I was gonna do this,that, that.
And you know, at that stage,parents were like, yeah, that's
that's cute.
Um, I remember, you know, Igrew up in Harrisonburg, which
is a small town in themountains, the valley in Sandra
Valley, Virginia.
And our dot family doctor was acountry doctor, and you go to
(04:21):
the visit, drive out of thecity, the massive city of you
know 20,000 people, right?
And go his little office.
And he talked to my mom, listento her lungs, and then give us
some pills.
And I remember as a kid beinglike, I can do that, that seems
pretty easy.
So um, that was kind of where Irealized I want to be a doctor
because I'm like, well, lookspretty easy, talks to my mom,
helps us out, you know.
Um, and at super simplebeginning, but that's kind of
(04:44):
how it started.
Ashley (04:45):
I love that.
And you know, I think thatwe'll we'll learn throughout our
conversation that um obviouslyyou achieved that, but then it
took a major shift.
And again, it was from personalexperience, and and we'll
definitely talk about that.
But tell us about your medicaleducation journey.
So you graduate high school,you go to college, what does it
look like after that?
Aaron Hartman (05:04):
I was very focused.
You know, the purpose of highschool was to go to college.
I mean, ultimately it was toget become a physician.
So, like most students, um,went to um Virginia Commonwealth
University and graduated SumoCum Lada um from there, very
focused out of scholarship.
So it was I was fortunate toget out of college with no debt.
And then I was like, what'snext?
And um go to medical school.
(05:25):
And again, I was kind of raisedno debt.
So I got an Air Forcescholarship and went into um the
Medical College of Virginia andthen did my residency there as
well.
Because those of your listenerswho go to do residency, I mean,
you don't really have a life.
And so I realized that youknow, MCD was great, um, great,
great reputation, great clinicalexperience.
And so I had a social network,so I stayed local and it
(05:48):
actually had a pretty difficultinternship.
Their internship year was amedical surge internship, which
is 100% hospital-based.
So it's like it was one stepbelow a surgery internship is
difficulty, but harder thaninternal medicine.
So it was you learned a lot ina year, and um, and then did my
about the additional two yearsin family medicine, and then did
the military for four years.
(06:09):
And military was awesomebecause every six months my job
changed.
So I got deployed overseas, um,helped run a clinic in Germany,
um, um uh came back, ran aclinic in McDill Air Force Base,
realized there was no one doingdermatology on the base.
So um did start doing somedermatology training at USF and
ended up running the dermatologythrough our clinic there.
(06:29):
Um, they didn't have anybodydoing stress testing, so I
picked that up as well.
And my thing was always tolearn a new procedure every
year.
Got out, came back to Virginia,joined a private practice, and
this might resonate with some ofyour people.
Like that was back before whenit was uncool for doctors to
advertise.
And so I realized for ourpractice to grow, we need to set
up the first website in 2007,which was like a one-page sheet.
(06:50):
And um, that was before otherbusinesses started buying, like
health grade started buyingwebsites.
So we were actually in the headof that.
So now if you come to the localcommunity and you're an
individual, you won't be able tomake web presence because it's
owned by differentorganizations, which is another
topic, and then built thatpractice up to 10 practitioners.
The busiest that practice was,we were seeing like 60,000
(07:10):
people a year come through it.
So it's busier than the ERAacross the street.
During that, I decided to starta research company.
So I started Virginia ResearchCenter, and we ended up running
over 70 clinical trials throughthe center over 12 years, and um
started studying functionalmedicine, integrated medicine.
And some somewhere in thatwhole mess, I decided to get a
seminary degree as well.
(07:31):
So when I was in the military,I went to seminary and took me
seven years to finish thatbecause it was a part-time gig.
So so it took longer thanusual.
But um just, you know, if youlearn something new every year
and the open the doors open, youwalk through them and you do
that for 25 years and you lookback, you're like, wow, like
where's everybody else?
And this is cool.
And that's been kind of myjourney.
Ashley (07:52):
It's incredible.
And I'm so glad that you havehad this experience that you can
share because I think there isthis common misconception right
now that if you want to become aphysician, MD DO, if you want
to become a physician, you'regonna be pigeonholed for the
rest of your life.
You know, I talk to so many PAstudents and they say, or pre-PA
students, and they say, well,Ashley, I want to be a PA
because I want job flexibilityand I don't know if I want to
stay working in the same fieldfor my whole life.
(08:13):
And I think, unfortunately foryou, you're gonna have to
revisit that thought becausethat is not true.
And Dr.
Hartman, you're living proof ofthis.
I mean, you've had a veryvaried career when it comes to
your career in medicine.
Do you think that's I mean, isthat is that normal?
Is this something that you'veobviously had to work really
hard to seek out?
Aaron Hartman (08:32):
My philosophy was to walk through doors as they
open.
I'm not like a go-getter, likeI'm gonna like run, like I
remember saying, I'm never gonnado research, I'm never gonna
write a book, I'm never gonnaown my own business, like
because I don't want to do thatstuff.
I just want to be a doctor andhelp people and you know, travel
and have fun and all that kindof stuff.
But if you if opportunitiesshow themselves, you take them.
(08:53):
If it and if it's not hard,it's probably not worth doing.
So you need to do hard things,you know, and it's amazing.
You know, there's this thingcalled the 80-20 rule, the
paretal rule.
And it's basically basicallythe idea is 20% people do 80% of
the work.
Um, and that includes 20% ofthe people have 80% of the
knowledge or however you want toframe it.
The ratios change based on thewhat you're looking at, but it's
roughly true.
(09:13):
So all of a sudden, withdoctors, 80% of people are
following the herd or doing thestatus quo, and 20% will do
things a little different.
And then it's the 20% of the20% of the 20%, which is the 1%,
and those are the innovators,those are people who are
thinking outside the box.
And so you have to go from this20% to that 20%, that 20%,
realizing that by the time youget there, you're gonna look
(09:34):
around and it's gonna be likeyou'll be alone.
But a lot of people will belooking to you, and so it's one
of those things that um you haveto be willing to do hard
things, you have to keep onlearning.
But I think just realizing thata prepay, a pre-PA student, or
you know, pre-med, whatever thelevel is, you know, just be open
to new things, be willing to dohard things, be be curious, be
curious.
(09:54):
Um, be the first one there, thelast one to go home.
You know, I did more when I wasdoing my OBG WAN, did more
deliveries, did more fiducialscalp electrodes.
When I was doing my um my umICU, I did more intubations
because I was first one there,last I wasn't the smartest.
Um, I wasn't the the personwith photographic memory who
could quote stuff, but I justworked hard and that's worth a
(10:18):
lot more than being the smartperson in the room.
And so just be willing to dohard things, be curious, don't
stop working, and you'll beamazed by where it takes you.
Ashley (10:26):
Be curious.
I love that.
I think that's fantastic,especially nowadays in a world
where you know we're able tojust search up information
immediately in our hand oronline right there.
You know, it's all instant thecuriosity factor is fading.
And I think if we maintainthat, like you said, doors are
gonna just start flying open andwe're gonna have to walk
through.
Dr.
Hartman, let's let's talk aboutthis.
I'm very, very excited to talkabout this.
(10:49):
So many guests on the show,like you just did, share a
personal experience that ledthem to medicine, right?
In your case, a personalexperience actually opened your
eyes to the realities ofmedicine, the realities of your
profession.
And I think it took you on apretty big pivot.
Can you tell us a little bitabout this?
Aaron Hartman (11:08):
So, this was during my third, going my fourth
year at McDill Air Force Basewhile I was in the Air Force.
I was a captain during a majorat that point in time.
And my wife, who um is apediatric occupational therapist
who worked with kids withspecial needs.
So she'd have all these rarecases.
We'd have interestingconversations about the things I
heard about in textbooks thatshe was seeing every day in the
(11:28):
clinic clinic and where she wasworking.
One of the little girls, Anna,um, her foster home was closing.
She was 12 months old, and sheasked me if we'd be willing to
foster her, bring her in.
And I said, sure, you know,because of my personal belief
system, part of that is to takecare of the vulnerable, take
care of people who can't takecare of themselves.
And I'm like, I say I believethese things, and I should be
willing to do that.
So for me, it was verymechanical, to be honest with
(11:50):
you.
But in the process, I did fallin love with Anna and we started
the whole adoption process.
And what happened was reallyinteresting.
You know, she was a failure tothrive.
Her her birth mother didcrystal meth the entire
pregnancy.
She had a stroke before she wasborn.
Um, she was born in a drugcoma, and usually kids are there
for about six or so.
She didn't interact with theworld for six months, and she
was small, she was less thanfifth percentile.
(12:11):
So the GI doctor was like, hey,she's not growing.
Let's put a tube in her becausethat's standard of care.
Cut a hole, put formula in.
And my wife and I hadconversations about speech
development, about crawling,about neurological development.
Chewing and swallowing changesfacial structure development.
I mean, we have more, if youdon't chew and swallow, it can
set you up for sleep apnea inadulthood, for example, right?
So all of a sudden it's like,no, we're not doing that.
(12:33):
Like we have high hopes anddreams, we have aspirations,
like all parents do, or futureparents do.
So we said no to the tube.
And we were reported to childprotective services.
Ashley (12:44):
Oh my gosh.
Aaron Hartman (12:45):
Or for child neglect, yeah, because we
refused to do it to the doctor.
Said now, my wife, it's sofunny because I was, I'm a
doctor, my wife's an OT.
And we got investigated.
The nurse who investigated us,my wife actually shared patients
with.
And so they kind of joked aboutit, like, uh, this doctor puts
tubes in all the kids.
And they kind of joked aboutit.
And we had to like meet withthe nutritionist.
The nutritionist was like,Yeah, you're doing the right
stuff.
So it went away, but that wasmy first inflection point.
(13:07):
The system does not like itwhen you say no, when you
question the system.
And in the special needs worldwith kids with special needs,
this actually happens a lotwhere kids are actually taken
away because they have rarediagnoses that the system
doesn't understand.
And the parents literally notjust fighting for the kids, but
they actually lose them and haveto fight to get it's it's
horrible that to see if it'seven is possible, but it does
(13:28):
happen.
And so I was kind of watchingthat from the outside, kind of
sort of not quite from theinside.
But here's the major inflectionpoint.
Um, six months later, myindustrious wife found a growth
chart for kids with cerebralpalsy.
And Anna was in the middle.
So the expert didn't know thisexisted.
And so that was like the ahamoment for me.
(13:49):
Like the experts don't know.
What else don't they know?
What are the blind spots thatpeople think to be true that's
wrong?
People know not to be truethat's actually not true.
And so it put a weight on myback because all of a sudden I
realized I had to figure it out.
I had to be the person who'dget up at four o'clock in the
morning and pull up articles onnutritional therapies,
gene-based cell therapies, um,things based on SNPs, which are
(14:12):
small, they're basically mythtypos in your genes and how that
can affect so um drug exposure,crystal methyl policy.
So that ended up being a 10 to12 year journey of me getting up
ridiculously early, readingarticles, reading books, finding
experts, traveling out of thecountry to meet these experts,
and realize there's it's likeit's like Alice in Wonderland,
(14:33):
right?
You go there and you go fromblack and white to a color
world.
And once you go there, yourealize, oh my gosh, there is so
much stuff out there that we'renever told about, we're never
taught about, that we ignore, wesay is witchcraft hooey.
It's actually cutting edge inGermany and Russia and
Switzerland and and China.
And all of a sudden, thatbecame my practice of medicine,
is doing that stuff, not just mydaughter, but with other people
(14:54):
as well.
And that is what led to mestarting my practice, Richmond
Engravement Functional Medicine.
So taking everything I'dlearned with her and starting an
entirely new practice with atotally different um economic
basis of, you know, you have tomake money, obviously, to
practice medicine.
And that's been a journey aswell, figuring out the economics
of actually enabled me topractice the best medicine that
I can learn in a system thatsays, you know, one widget and
(15:16):
one dollar.
Um, so that was another journeyas well.
Ashley (15:20):
Incredible.
That is an absolutelyincredible story.
And I can't wait to unpack somethings in there.
Um, but before we talk abouthow your day looks a little bit
different now from what you weredoing to what you're doing now,
you mentioned something that Ithink is really important that
we touch on, and that's calledstandard of care or
evidence-based medicine.
And my two questions for youabout this are number one, what
does that generally mean in themedical world?
(15:42):
Like if you walked into ahospital and you hear people
talking about standard of care,what does that mean?
And then what does that mean toyou?
Because I have a feeling thatit might perhaps be two separate
things.
Now, Dr.
Hartman and I did not have achance to discuss a quality
question.
Quality questions is a segmenton the show where we review
interview questions for you, apre-health student, looking
(16:04):
towards your next interview.
But something Dr.
Hartman is about to talk aboutwould make an excellent
question.
When someone defines thestandard of care, what happens
when that standard does notapply to your daughter suffering
from a muscular issue?
It begs the question (16:19):
how do you define standard of care?
If you're asked this on aninterview, admissions committees
want to see your ability tothink beyond what's handed to
you, to notice nuance, tochallenge assumptions, and to
advocate for better care.
Your action step this week isgoing to be to identify a moment
(16:39):
where you did not settle forthe first explanation or the
easy path.
Reflect on what that says abouthow you'll show up in medicine.
Keep in mind that there's moreinterview prep, such as mock
interviews and personalstatement review, over on
ShadowMeNext.com.
There you'll find amazingresources to help you as you
prepare to answer your ownquality questions.
Aaron Hartman (17:02):
So standard of care is just the basic concept
that whatever's done in thelocal community, and standard of
care can be different inMississippi versus New York
versus California.
It's basically an unstatedconsensus.
Like what's going on in yourarea that people do?
Now, sometimes they becomestandardized.
Like when I did my OBGYNtraining, they had the ACOG have
a big book and they actuallyevery year put it out and it's
(17:24):
got like the protocols forabsolutely everything.
So they have their own statedstandard of care.
And it's basically consensus.
If you get a room full ofexperts, what's the consensus on
diabetes treatment andmanagement, post-concussive
syndrome treatment, chronicfatigue, whatever it is?
And so it's a consensus-basedtreatment.
We're following a herd.
Um, and so that's kind of whatstandard of care is.
(17:45):
The issue with standard of careis that if you're outside of
it, there's really no room forthat.
And there's so many things,people forget that, like with
kids, up to 60% of medicationsused with pediatrics are not FDA
approved.
30 to 40% of drug use in adultsis not FDA approved.
So it's like you get a drug outthere, like metformin or
aspirin or um COZAR, I'm lowSartan, and you find out, hey,
(18:06):
it lowers uric acid.
You can use it for goutpatients, it lowers TGF beta.
It can, it's ananti-inflammatory.
I mean, that's that's part ofhow it helps blood pressure.
You're right.
And so all of a sudden nowmedications get a wider, broader
usage that might fall outsidethe quote-unquote standard of
care, but that's kind of how thepractice of medicine works.
So it's consensus basically.
Um, and typically you have youknow room, a bunch of smart
(18:27):
people, and what can you agreeon?
The lowest common denominator.
So it's not cutting edge care.
It's okay, what can we allagree about?
Agree in.
So that's something to thinkabout.
Evidence-based medicine is notwhat it used to be.
It was supposed to be, therewas an article that came out, it
was either 89 or 91, I believe,in um British Medical Journal,
uh maybe, or JAMA.
Um, think of which one thatactually defined evidence-based
(18:49):
medicine.
And it was three legs.
It was um the you know, up todate, accurate um clinical
evidence, so research articles,etc.
Patient preference andclinician experience.
So the fact that I've had over100,000 patient encounters in
seven countries and fourcontinents means meant
something, meant something.
I've taken care of malaria inEcuador, I've taken care of
(19:11):
diabetic wounds in Honduras,like I've seen a flesh-eating
disease in Morocco and NorthAfrica.
So it's like I have a toolkitthat's a little unique, right?
The problem is now it meanssolely randomized, double-blind,
placebo-controlled trials.
So now when you when you'reroom with experts, like what's
the evidence for that?
They mean what's the RTC?
And then people don't realizethis whole thing about
(19:34):
publication bias, where justlike the standard of care to get
in a journal, an editorialboard has to say, yes, we think
that is true.
Let's put it in.
And so there's a publicationbias bias.
And then according to Dr.
Ioannis and PLOS, which is thelargest um journal, online
journal in the world, 50% of allresearch findings are later
(19:55):
found to be false.
So all of a sudden, theevidence we're looking at, half
of it's wrong.
And when I was in medicalschool, I was told half of what
I read in a textbook was wrong.
So all of a sudden, we've goneto this technocratic practice
based on research articles that,you know, batting 500 maybe,
you know, batting 500 is greatfor baseball and horrible for
flying planes.
And so, and so I think, youknow, that's where it's that's
(20:18):
where I think we've kind of gotoff the rails a little bit with
the evidence-based medicinething.
And evidence-based medicineignores population data, it
ignores um meta-analysis,ignores healing traditions.
You know, um, I could give youso many examples.
One example in ancientAyurvedic medicine, they
believed ghee could use, couldbe used to treat neurological
issues.
When I first heard that, I'mlike ghee treating neural.
(20:41):
That's stupid, that's dumb.
Well, fast forward, there'sactually now a FDA-proved drug,
phenyl butyrate, in combinationwith phosphylcholine, that's
being used to treat symptoms ofALS.
What we now know is thatbutyrate acts like a chaperone
to clear to clear out um lipiddebris in our bodies.
Now, butyrate's made in yourgut naturally by bacteria.
(21:01):
So if you have a good diet,fiber, um, you actually make
your own butyrate.
But nature's best source ofbutyrate is clarified butter or
ghee.
So then it's like, how didpeople 4,000 years ago connect
some dots to figure out whatjust now in the last three to
five years, evidence is showingthere's evidence for that?
And so that's where what I lovewhat I do, it's a lot of times
it's connecting those dots,sometimes 10, 20, 30 years
(21:23):
before the evidence does, andthen taking evidence that's
published and accelerating it,right?
Like using the ponds, it's aportable oral neurostimulation
device that was used to tradekids with CP in Russia.
It was available in Canada.
So I went to Canada to get it,and it's only approved here in
the United States to treatbalance issues with MS.
Oh, why can't I use why arethey using it in Russia and
(21:44):
Canada?
So sometimes thisevidence-based journey is also
kind of you gotta you gotta yougotta look at all the evidence,
all the data, and then use yourclinical expertise to figure out
is this true or false?
Because sometimes evidence saysthings that are false, and you
how are you gonna know thedifference?
Ashley (22:00):
I'm blown away.
I'm actually blown away rightnow.
That is so interesting.
Dr.
Harmon, do you think so?
For functional medicine, do youhave to be a medical doctor?
Do you have to be an MD or a DOin order to enter functional?
I'm just the reason I ask isbecause I'm imagining the fact
that your view of this is soincredibly well-rounded because
conventional medicine, you havethat education there, but then
(22:22):
you also have this functionalmedicine education as well.
So what does every functionalmedicine doctor have the same uh
background you do?
Aaron Hartman (22:31):
No, um, no, it just depends on how deep you go.
And obviously, I'm someone whogoes pretty, pretty deep.
Um I I think the basicprinciples are that with
functional medicine, thefoundations are foundational.
You know, diet, exercise,sleep, uh, meaningful
relationships, um, nutrientdeficiencies.
Like if you do the basics, thathits 80% of everything.
(22:51):
So you can have, you know,nutritionists that are are
trained in functional medicine.
You can have acupuncturists,chiropractors that are trained
in it, that can do the 80%, thatcan say, hey, you're eating
processed foods.
And oh, by the way, if you havepost-concussive syndrome,
omega-3 and healthy omega-6s canactually help your brain heal.
Don't eat trans fats, don'teat, you know, rancid orals.
(23:11):
Like that, you don't have to bea triple board certified
clinical researcher doctor togive that kind of advice.
So that's the beauty offunctional medicine is that at
the basic foundational level,it's really accessible.
But then you get to thenuances, the weeds where it's
like, okay, you get past the80%, and um you still have
post-concussive syndrome or longCOVID or post-Lyme, you got to
(23:33):
take illness or something else,the flu, and you've been feeling
crappy and hurting for years.
Well, then it's like, what'sthe literature say?
And you can use low-dosenaltrexone, which has been
around forever, to remodulatemicroglia in your brain.
Okay, cool.
I use that with a lot of myautistic kids, my pandas kids,
and it helps calm theinflammation down your brain.
Um, a lot of all all chronicpain actually has a has a
(23:57):
centralization process to it.
And low-dose naltrexone worksgreat for that.
So all of a sudden, as amedical doctor in the string, I
can actually take some of thatdata and translate it.
With my daughter, for example,she had really bad tone in her
legs.
And the standard of care forher at DuPont, which is one of
the top, the top pediatricplaces in the world, was to put
a bacclefin pump in her back, toput bacclefin into her spine.
(24:19):
Locally, here it was to do onthe spinal surgery, cut her
hamstrings, or send her to Texasfor a selective dorsal
rhizotomy, super fancy test.
They cut little nerves torelease the tone.
That was that was the cuttingedge stuff.
But then I knew from functionalneurology studies that you can
remodulate the brain withperipheral nerve stimulation.
(24:41):
And I was looking for aneuromuscular stimulation device
and I found one calledRevitative.
FDA approved, by the way, totreat circulation issues in the
legs.
And within six months, her tonein her lower extremities was
gone.
Wow.
And so she went from hunchingover.
So that $300 device is probablysaved a $400,000 procedure.
And when you realize thishappens all the time, you know,
when we talk about electricalstimulation, there are devices
(25:03):
FDA-approved to treat migraines,hitting your V1, part of your
trigeminal.
There are ones used fortreating different pain
syndromes, um, muscle spasms.
You know, professional athletesuse this to help build muscle
mass.
And the question is, how can Itranslate these data points to
this chronic fatigue fiber?
There's actually an interestingdevice called Quell, Q-U-E-L-L,
and it actually activates yourperipheral, and this might be
(25:24):
getting a little nerdy here, buthopefully your people get this
here.
Ashley (25:28):
You can nerd out.
Aaron Hartman (25:29):
Okay.
It activates your peripheral umalpha fibers, which go into
your rubrospin, the rubrospinal,the red tract in your brain.
The way your brain works in themidbrain is actually sends
inhibition down to inhibit pain.
When that gets dysregulated,now shingles, my arm hurts, a
phantom limb syndrome, the armthat's not there hurts.
Well, this device actuallyhelps remodulate that.
(25:50):
And I've had patients withprofaneuropathy and chronic
fibro pain, have it go away overthree or four months with a
little buzzy thing that buzzesyour leg for 12 hours a day.
So part of what I would do istake these data points that
there's data here, diet here,and diet to here, and then fill
the gaps in.
And that's unfortunately wherea lot of our conventional stuff
doesn't do is that we'll takethis data point for the
(26:10):
physiatrist and this data pointfor the neurologist migraine
person, but it won't connectthose dots and fill in the gaps
for your typical average personthat I see in my clinic.
Ashley (26:20):
That is so cool.
And actually it leads reallynicely into my next question.
So, how, in your opinion, howhas your day in clinic, for
example, how has that changedfrom when you were practicing
conventional medicine to whatyou're practicing now?
You're describing a little bitof it, but really getting down
to nitty-gritty specifics.
Is it is it vastly differentfor you?
Is it vastly different for yourrelationship with your
(26:42):
patients?
Aaron Hartman (26:43):
So it my day used to be when I was in the the
heat of it, when I was seeing mymy busiest year, I saw um just
slightly below 6,000 patients umin a year.
So for those people out there,you know, that's a lot of
people.
I was getting to the hospital.
Um the I think the standardphysician sees maybe three,
4,500 is considered a lot,right?
(27:04):
So um I got to the hospital atsix o'clock in the morning.
I did rounds on my admissionsum overnight, followed with my
my my existing patients, wouldthen go to the clinic at eight,
um, eight till five in theclinic seeing people, hospital
follow-ups.
Um, if needed to go back to thehospital, see someone in the
ICU, I either go during lunchbreak or at the end of the day.
I typically get back home aboutsix, six o'clock.
(27:26):
And I did that um five days aweek.
And then the every fourth umweekend I was on call.
So I was working through theweekend.
And every Tuesday night, I wason call, so I did it eight to
eight.
So um so I did that for youknow from 2007 until about 20 um
22.
So that's and that's a stay,that's a standard good
old-fashioned family medicinekind of practice, right?
(27:48):
On top of that, I was doing myreading and research, and and
actually in 2016 is when Istarted my functional practice.
So that's when I was doing thatas well at that time.
What's it look like now?
Um now at that point in time, Iwas also getting up at four
o'clock in the morning to readthese stuff.
Now I get up at 6, 6:30 in themorning, um, have my coffee,
read a little bit, um, go to thegym.
Clink starts at 8:30.
(28:09):
Um, I go 8:30 to 12.
I have a two-hour break between12 and 2, and then see patients
from 2 to 4.
So, you know, a pretty light,not big, busy day.
Um, I have Wednesdays and triesoff for admin time.
So when I read that's when Iresearch my patients now.
I'm not still not stealing frommy sleep anymore because sleep
is the super drug.
And so when I was young, I wasI was told and believed that
(28:32):
I'll sleep when I die.
And now that I'm older and knowmore, I'm like, uh not sleeping
will kill me.
So increase my risk for cancerand diabetes and all kinds of
stuff.
Don't listen to that residentsout there.
You gotta work hard, you gottanot sleep.
But um, and so it's totallydifferent now.
Um I I currently I used to takemy patient impalement at one
point in time was right at 2800patients.
(28:53):
Now it's 300.
Um, an intake for me is twohours.
unknown (28:57):
Wow.
Aaron Hartman (28:58):
So I will do an intake two hours, um, order a
bunch of fancy labs, et cetera.
FOP is an hour and 15 minutes,and a routine visit is 45
minutes.
So instead of being 10 to 12minutes, I have 45 minutes
routinely with a patient.
Sometimes short, sometimes areally short 30 minutes, you
know.
So it's vastly different.
But it's interesting.
I have patients I've beenworking with for years, and it's
(29:20):
and I did this in primary carebecause I was intentive and I
listened to people and you seethem a lot, but you you get to
know people's story a lotbetter.
And I can give you a storyabout my wife, actually.
Um it's funny what you learned.
She was an OT and she umdeveloped really bad um anxiety
in grad school, almost droppedout, got anxious, depressed,
just felt super off.
(29:40):
Ended up graduating, gotstraight at ACE like all the
years, and grad school did well.
When I met her, I was kind oflike, you know, I remember
hearing her story and be like,suck it up.
Like that's just what we do.
We work hard.
Um, she's ended up developing acouple of health issues, mast
cell issues, chronic fatigue,fibro, had really bad chronic
fatigue for five years.
15 years into our marriage.
Because I'm a very attentivehusband.
(30:02):
I'm glad you're laughing, notscowling.
Realized her trigger for thishealth crisis was an anatomy lab
in grad school where she wasexposed to formaldehyde for six
months straight.
Whoa.
Fromaldehyde is a neurotoxin.
It binds to your proteins andchanges the conformation.
That's how it preserves stuff.
(30:22):
And it was, it took me 15 yearsto figure that out.
But part of the functionalmedicine thing is realizing how
the environment affects herhealth.
So that one data point led toher health issues for 15 plus
years.
And that was just one thingthat my my this alternative
medicine, functional medicine,has helped me realize that
environment is just as importantas the food you eat.
(30:42):
It's just as important as thepeople you're around, just as
important the medications you doand don't take.
30% of all pharmaceutical drugsare mitochondrial toxicants.
Whoa.
Just think about that.
(31:03):
And half of all drugs areactually detoxified or processed
out of our bodies by our gutmicrobiome.
So it's two basic functionalmedicine foundational things.
The idea of mitochondrialtoxicity and gut microbiome that
comes together with traditionalmedicine is ignored by the
system, a blind spot, if youwill.
Ashley (31:23):
Wow.
Again, mind blown.
It's like like fireworks overhere, like the one one thing and
then the next.
That is, I'm glad you mentionedsome of these things because
you have a blog that we can findon Aaron Hartman MD.com,
amongst a bunch of other thingsthat we're going to talk about
in a second.
And you you dive into some ofthese things that people might
not know about.
Um, formaldehyde.
(31:43):
Obviously, we know not to drinkit, but we didn't really know
what else we need not to do withit.
Um, mold.
You talk a lot about mold andsome of the things maybe people
need to start thinking about.
Um, that can be found in yourblog, which we're gonna talk
about in a second.
But as our as our last questionbefore we wrap up, especially
as a parent physician, you'verefused to accept that's just
how it is.
(32:04):
You know, that phrase, that'sjust how it is.
That you that's unacceptable toyou as an answer.
If patients or clinicians arefeeling this way right now, with
their own health challenges orwith the health challenges in
their patients, what shouldtheir next step be?
Aaron Hartman (32:20):
Um, you need to research, don't give up, don't
accept the status quo.
Um, answers were if you lookfor the answers, you will find
them, you know, or theysometimes they actually, if they
find you, to be honest withyou, it's don't give up.
And so I actually was on apodcast with a an ultra-marathon
runner in New Zealand.
unknown (32:37):
Wow.
Aaron Hartman (32:37):
Who like was the first woman to like run 150
miles in some random desertsomewhere.
So like super motivated, supermindset oriented, not a um
doctor, not a clinician, just asuper athlete.
And her mother had a stroke,and her mother later got
lymphoma.
And her mother should have hermother's still alive now.
She should have been dead 15years ago.
And she did not accept what NewZealand told her that we can't
(33:00):
help your mom's stroke, figuredout about hyperbaric mess and
got a hyperbaric chamber,figured out peptides.
And her mom, within threeyears, 100% recovered from her
stroke.
She should have passed awayfrom.
Five years later, um, they hadlesions in her brain.
They actually happened to be uman intro cranial lymphoma.
Again, she figured out somestuff, um, hyperbaric um
ketogenic diets.
(33:21):
It's a lot of interestingliterature on cancer is a
metabolic disease.
There's a whole book on it.
And so she found thisinformation, and her mom's 15
years into it, thriving, doingwell.
And so, and this was someonewho's not medical.
So, part of her story that wasjust impactful to me is you
might feel like, how do you dothis?
You can do it too.
And so I wouldn't give up.
And the reality is justresearch, find stuff.
(33:41):
It's amazing.
One path leads to another.
I started my functionalmedicine training, and then one
of the one of the lecturers wasTatis Karazian, probably the top
functional neurologist in theworld, him and Dr.
Brock.
And I spent a year studyingfunctional neurology, which is
how you can look at a patient,how they walk, and figure out
which part of the brain's messedup, and then how you can
actually get the brain to cellphenol repair using physical and
(34:01):
electrical modalities, thewhole field of medicine out
there.
And so once you start lookingat things, you'll find you gut
microbiome stuff, hormones,environmental toxins.
You know, I have a textbook ofclinical environmental medicine
sitting right there.
It's a book about how theenvironment can affect your
health.
And so when you find thosethings, get your library
together and put them in yourbooks to read.
It might not be anytime soonbecause you're in in school or
(34:22):
whatnot, but start collectingthe books you want to read.
And it's amazing.
One thing leads to another,leads to another.
Um, unfortunately, in our boardcertification um siloed
training training world, we takethe inquisitive inquisitiveness
and the curiosity of students,and we kind of like eliminate it
when you finish.
I remember, haha, you'llappreciate this.
(34:42):
I remember the last semester ofmy residency training, my first
one, talking to my cousin.
I read all the textbooks.
I I got like 97% on my boardsearch.
So it's like I was a top threepercentile.
I remember saying to him, I'velearned everything, I've
mastered medicine.
And he looked at me and it'slike, Hartman, like what's your
no?
And he, you know, and Iremember thinking, you just
don't know, young lad, how smartand brilliant I am.
(35:04):
And um, in hindsight, I was anidiot.
Like now I'm like, I don't Itell people, I'll you know,
Ashley, I don't know what I'mdoing.
Like, I'm still practicing, I'mstill figuring stuff out.
And so it's interesting how thesystem kind of beats that out
of us.
Don't let it beat it out ofyou.
Stay, stay curious, um, keeplearning, never and never, ever,
ever give up on yourself oryour loved ones because the
(35:25):
system will.
Ashley (35:27):
That's so true.
Dr.
Aaron Hartman of Aaron HartmanMD.com.
Uh, we mentioned your blog onthere.
There's a whole bunch ofawesome, really, really awesome
things.
Your podcast, which is made forhealth, definitely check it
out.
You links to your YouTubevideos are there.
Um, and then your book,Uncurable, from hopeless
diagnosis to defying all odds.
And that's uncurable.
(35:48):
And this is going to be a greatnext step if this conversation
is really resonating with youright now.
Um, it's an amazing book.
It's available on his website,it's also available on Amazon.
Please check it out, Dr.
Hartman.
It has been the most funtalking to you today.
Thank you so much.
Aaron Hartman (36:05):
So I appreciate it.
Hopefully, this was helpful toyour audience.
Ashley (36:08):
Thank you so very much for listening to this episode of
Shadow Me Next.
If you liked this episode, orif you think it could be useful
for a friend, please subscribeand invite them to join us next
Monday.
As always, if you have anyquestions, let me know on
Facebook or Instagram.
Access you want, stories youneed, you're always invited to
Shadow Me Next.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.