Integrative+ Functional
Medicine
Your symptoms and your story are uniquely yours. Choosing to work with an integrative doctor means entering into a partnership with someone who gets to know your story and not just your lab results, imaging and diagnoses. The integrative approach prompts you to look at your symptoms from a different angle and challenges you to make life changes that can direct you on a healing path.
Whether you haven’t seen a doctor in 20 years, or you’ve seen every subspecialist in the phone book, Integrative Medicine is a personalized approach to your health challenges.
What I Do
My job is to listen deeply to your story and answer one question – what are the modifiable factors interfering with your body’s innate drive to heal? I answer this question by taking the time needed to hear your story and focusing 100% on you during the visit. During our time together, I take notes on paper (not a computer). My attention is entirely focused on you.
The Power of Symptoms
At the initial visit, I record your symptoms and story on a timeline. Understanding the order in which symptoms and major life events unfolded is an important part of an Integrative/Functional evaluation. Symptoms are your body’s early warning system, directing you to examine areas of your life and lifestyle needing attention. Symptoms are signposts directing us towards root causes of imbalance. With the busy and overscheduled lives many of us live nowadays, it is easy to overlook these early warning signs of imbalance. Use of caffeine, over the counter medications, and/or prescription medication can suppress symptoms, but will not fix the underlying underlying problem. People often live with disregarded warning signs for decades, without realizing that small adjustments in diet, lifestyle, sleep, orodental health and environment can lead to a huge shift in wellbeing and vitality.
About Me
I’ve practiced medicine since 2000. Initially, I spent over a decade working in acute care Internal Medicine in New York City and then Miami. During this period I had the honor of helping clinically train hundreds of medical students and residents while working as a Hospital Medicine Physician. As the years passed, younger and younger people were being admitted to the Internal Medicine wards with diagnoses that had previously been seen in mostly older patients. Genes do not change over a period of 15 years, and this got me interested in nutritional and environmental influences of disease, Integrative Medicine and clinical research. In 2015 I started an Integrative/Functional practice in Bay Harbor Islands, FL. Several years later, I moved to Santa Fe, NM, where I currently practice Integrative Medicine.
What I love most about Integrative Medicine is having the time needed to evaluate and care for complex patients, and being able to apply the tools/testing to consider personalized lifestyle, nutrition and environmental factors (chemical toxins, mold, electromagnetic fields) as part of diagnosis and treatment. Integrative Medicine offers the best of both conventional medicine as well as “complementary” therapies that are safe and effective. I get a lot of joy from applying the two approaches together in my practice.
Education/Training/Affiliations
Medical Education and Training
- Medical School (Doctor of Medicine): Tel-Aviv University Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv, Israel, 1997
- Internship: Jacobi Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY
- Residency in Internal Medicine: Beth Israel Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY, NY
- Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Instituto De Medicina Tropical/Gorgas Memorial Institute, Lima, Peru 2005
Board Certification/Affiliations
- Diplomate, American Board of Internal Medicine 2000-present
- Diplomate, American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine 2012
- University of Miami/Institute for Functional Medicine Pilot Course Participant (2011-2015)
- Member, Academy of Integrative Holistic Medicine
- Member, American Academy of Environmental Medicine
- Member, Institute for Functional Medicine
Faculty Appointments
- Associate Professor of Medicine, Community Faculty, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, NM, May 2019-present
- Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL, August 2011-July 2015
- Assistant Professor of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, October 2006-June 2011
- Assistant Professor of Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, May 2004-February 2005
- Instructor in Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, July 2001-April 2004
Peer Reviewed Publications
Lauren Sauvageot – Office Manager
Lauren is originally from Minnesota and Wisconsin and has lived in Santa Fe for 16 years. She studied Business and Design at Bemidji State University in Northern Minnesota. She has a diverse background working in sales, service, events and with nonprofits. Lauren is married with 3 grown children and 2 grandchildren who make her smile everyday. Helping others is her passion. She enjoys volunteer work, the outdoors, reading and visiting family & friends around the country.
For assistance with administrative issues, general questions or appointment scheduling, please contact Lauren directly at: office@drsharongoldberg.com.
