Health is Wealth Institute

Primary Care

My journey to coaching makes complete sense in retrospect but was not planned. I chose to get my undergraduate degree in psychology and behavioral neuroscience out of a passion for understanding human behavior and how to change it - why we think, feel and behave the way we do and how we can change those with introspection and intention.

I didn’t want to use my training to become a traditional therapist and have also always been extremely passionate about physical health, so I decided to pursue a career in primary care because it's an excellent 50/50 intersection of physical and mental health care. I found an outstanding practice called Family Practice Group in Arlington, MA with exceptional clinicians who are warm, dedicated, brilliant people who taught me to treat patients as family. I've been happily working there since 2012.

2006-

2012

2012-

2018

Functional Medicine

I originally decided to become a PA instead of an MD because I already knew I didn’t want to invest 7 years in traditional medical training as I was more interested in and passionate about functional medicine (a holistic, root-cause approach to treating disease and creating health) which is not taught in medical school. So, I became a PA, started working, and then pivoted by getting 2 years of additional training in functional medicine along with a functional medicine apprenticeship.

“I know what to do but I can't get myself to do it."

I thought applying functional medicine in the primary care setting would be the key to my own career satisfaction and creating a more profound impact on others, but then quickly realized many people still struggled immensely to make and mainain the changes I’d recommend. Everyone would tell me “I know what to do but I can't get myself to do it.” They were also spending hundreds of dollars on expensive lab testing without truly mastering the basics of health and wellness (nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress management, etc) which seemed silly to me. Their labs were largely just a reflection of their lifestyle, so I figured let's fix that first and then medicalize any symptoms that remained.

2018-

2020

A New Modality

I decided to reexplore psychology and behavioral science. I read dozens of books about the science of behavior change, mindset mastery, motivational interviewing and positive psychology and started implementing it with my fuctional and traditional medicine patients. BOOM! Suddenly my patients were getting traction on their health goals. They didn’t just learn from me WHAT to do but HOW to do what they know. This was powerful. Coaching works.

No More Managing

After 11 years in medicine, I’d become deeply and broadly skilled at managing a huge variety of medical and emotional conditions. However, I'd also become increasingly dissatisfied with just managing. I wanted people to heal and transform and I wanted to make sure my patients understood that it was possible. Who wants to just be managed or manage? If I asked you how you're doing and you said “oh, I’m managing”, that would be a pretty depressing response. However, in medicine, we medical providers often write the assessment “condition well-managed" or "stable” in your office visit notes as if to say "job well done." I asked myself, if my patients were returning year after year for management of the same chronic issues, was I actually doing a good job of helping them or just complicit in their disease state? I had a loyal customer base and lovely long-term relationships with my patients, but what I really wanted for them was to graduate from my care, their medications and their chronic conditions.

...

Primarily Caring and Some Swearing

Coaching

Changing our behavior is hard and most people don’t know how to do it successfully, even the professionals who should be helping you. Medical providers don’t have the training or the time necessary to educate and support people in making lasting behavioral changes. Nutritionists convey important information but so many people would tell me they don’t feel inspired or emotionally able to implement their recommendations. Therapists do incredibly important work around healing from pain and understanding emotions, but rarely focus on how to create concrete, actionable changes in people’s lives.

Even at an excellent primary care practice, I was so frustrated by the time and impact limitations of the traditional insurance-based medical model that it would make me want to swear (and I often did). While I continue to practice medicine there out of love for my practice, colleagues, patients and the medicine itself, I broke off to offer private coaching because I knew the impact I could have on patients was too limited in 20-30 minute appointments several times a year. It takes a tremendous amount of listening, counseling, coaching, educating and accountability creation to produce real and lasting transformation.

The Health is Wealth Institute

I learned that we cannot cure disease without addressing the context in which it came to be. Most people struggling with illness (diabetes, obesity, depression, etc.) need more than just information to change their lives - they need someone to motivate, empower and direct them. To reverse disease and create wellness, we must deconstruct and unpack the factors that contributed to the problem, teach mental and emotional skills to shift the internal narratives that keep people stuck in their current state, and then do the fun, tangible work of change.

My job is to hold a vision of you as your healthiest, happiest self until you can hold it for yourself.

Coaching has been the joy of my career because I help people transform every day. I teach people how to become the CEO of their health, their minds and their lives.

Your physical and mental health are your greatest wealth.

2020-

2023

The

future

Go All IN

The GAIN Program

I knew I wanted to give everything I had to the people I care for. This is why I started the Health is Wealth Institute - to offer the best of my education, training, experience and myself to others.

The Health is Wealth Institute offers individual health and life coaching, is currently launching a group metabolic disease reversal program called Gain, and in 2024 will offer metabolic disease reversal medical care.

This is the story of my journey to starting The Health is Wealth Institute and why I hope you will take the journey with me, too.

Leading by example and serving with love,

Betsy