Will working for a Functional Medicine Practice look bad on applications?

[sloppypapi]

So many argue that functional/ holistic/ integrative medicine is quackery, while others will claim it is the future of medicine.
I might have an opportunity to work for a FM practice, where I will have lots of responsibility and get to work closely with the physician (who is a MD). However, I'm nervous about it being a bit too alternative, and that being frowned upon by adcoms at allopathic schools.

What do you think?

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[mk04447]

Ultimately, they will only know what you tell them about the practice. Check the boxes, put down X number of hours experience and gain hours doing whatever you enjoy. Will likely never to come up where you gained them, unless you make it an issue to form an opinion on.

 

[DrMidlife]

1. practicing academic physicians (who will review your app and if you're lucky will interview you) are unlikely to ever have heard of functional med
2. calling it "FM" is really bad, in the context of med school apps, because "FM" is family medicine which is a huge medical specialty and is an academic department at every medical school (except Columbia? did they eliminate it? didn't keep track)
3. the last thing you want is to explain what functional med is. i wouldn't even bring it up. you shadowed a primary care doc. you learned about obesity and diabetes management.
4. what you'll be missing with functional med is care of the underserved, incarcerated, mentally ill etc. who don't have the wallets to access it.
5. functional med is BUSINESS. it's a longitudinal customer service model, vs what most primary care is, which is passive herd surveillance and occasional interventions from a limited armamentum. this is not something you can get a mature and nuanced understanding of as a premed, imho, but it's otherwise interesting as hell.

tl;dr: shadowing a primary care doc is shadowing.

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

I have not seen your posts before this one DrMidlife, but I am floored by its quality. What you have listed above is absolutely perfect. I look forward to reading more of your insights.

Obviously from my moniker, I am generally lurking in the MCAT and MCAT Q&A forums. I came to the nontraditional forum, because our classes are now over fifty percent nontraditional students and I was hoping to read up on the general SDN vibe. The quality of your post is such a nice change from what I've been reading in the other forums of late. I'm stumbling for thoughts and words at the moment, so I'll just end with what may seem cliche, but is far from it. Thank you so much for your positive impact on the SDN community.

 

[CyrilFiggis]

While this can be a unique experience, I always encourage applicants to try and get in-patient exposure as well. If you do this, try to also volunteer at a hospital as well.