Practicing Medicine with Empathy and Humility with Dr. Michael Stone

Dr. Michael Stone is a board-certified family physician, practicing integrative and functional medicine. He is the co-founder and medical director of Ashland Comprehensive Family Medicine, a full multiple clinician collaborative care clinic in Oregon, which he runs with his wife Dr. Leslie Stone, and their daughter Emily Rydbom.

He is a leader in the functional medicine field, specifically in the areas of developmental programming of health and disease, improving chronic disease, and encouraging lasting health and well-being.  

He has been an adjunct faculty at UCLA and the University of Washington for primary care students in the Doctoring and RUOP programs. He is a faculty at the Institute of Functional Medicine (IFM) and was chosen as their Linus Pauling award recipient in 2019. 

His career has offered him medical experiences and allowed him to practice in places like Thailand, Alaska, the Eastern Sierras, Idaho, and Oregon. 

He is a writer, researcher, functional medicine educator, and mentor of undergraduate, resident, and practicing clinicians. A focus of his work is on the ABCD of functional nutrition evaluation in clinical practice, helping physicians, clinicians, and clients alike see more connections to can improve health.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Michael’s inspiration to go into medicine 

- The importance of empathy and humility, being an active listener and meeting people where they are

- What moved him and his wife to focus on nutrition and functional medicine

- Detecting patterns and getting to the root cause of medical problems

- The benefits of a patient focused approach in medicine

- What Michael would like to change and continue to impact in the world of medicine and nutrition

- Similarities in Yael’s and Michael’s journey

- The power of genetics and accessible genetic testing, using biomarkers and health history to improve a patient’s health and well being