While at the Cooper Clinic, unexpectedly, her medical career began to change. Engels attended a number of lectures focused on optimizing nutrition, cardiovascular fitness, and preventive medicine strategies. Quickly she developed a desire to delve more deeply into areas like nutrition, preventive medicine, supplementation, and cardiovascular performance, fields not emphasized in her earlier medical studies.

As she contemplated these new areas of interest, a colleague mentioned a field of medical specialization new to her – Functional Medicine – and she soon began studying this relatively new approach to patient treatment.

Functional Medicine

Functional Medicine focuses on identifying and addressing the root causes of disease, while devising the most effective ways to treat them. This form of treatment requires a detailed understanding of each patient’s genetic, biochemical, and lifestyle factors and leverages that data to develop personalized treatment plans that lead to improved patient outcomes.

Rather than focusing on symptoms, practitioners of Functional Medicine concentrate on causation, identifying the complexity of disease, including its many possible origins and manifestations. For example, one health condition may have many different causes, and, conversely, one cause may result in many different health conditions.

Sylvia Jeffrey

Receptionist and Phlebotomist

Intrigued and determined to learn more, Dr. Engels threw herself into a regimen of studies. She earned a degree in nutrition and health coaching from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, and to deal with some of her own health issues, she became a patient of a Functional Medicine practitioner. “I experienced firsthand the power of Functional Medicine and how it helped me feel like my optimal self again,” she says.

In June 2020 she began her practice in Functional Medicine, WeCare Frisco, and in November 2021 she earned full certification in that field from the Institute for Functional Medicine.

Since 2020, she has shared office space in Frisco with Dr. Xie Yin, but because of the growth of her practice, within a few weeks she will open her own separate clinic.

Summing up her years-long transition from radiologist to a clinician practicing Functional Medicine she says, “Sometimes I have to laugh because back when I was reading films in a dark room, I never would have imagined I would be seeing patients in my own clinic. I feel like this is my calling, I just took a roundabout way to get here.”

Check out this book that Dr. Engels has co-authored…

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