Functional Medicine Advanced Practice Modules® (APM) Hormone
Functional Medicine Advanced Practice Modules® (APM) Hormone is organized by The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) and will be held from Jul 12 - 14, 2024.
Re-establishing Hormonal Balance in the Hypothalamic, Pituitary, Adrenal, Thyroid, and Gonadal Axis
IFM’S HORMONE ADVANCED PRACTICE MODULE
This Functional Medicine Advanced Practice Module will clarify exactly how to approach hormonal dysregulation, with discussions on the most important evaluations to make and integrative treatment approaches to apply. We will help you analyze the controversies and provide you with tools that you can use immediately in your practice.
Our expert faculty team will supply you with the foundational background, insight, and in-depth clinical thinking to confidently assess and treat patients who present with hormonal dysfunction. This program will provide a unique, experiential, case-based, clinically practical experience from which you will acquire the tools you need to apply a comprehensive functional medicine approach to hormone dysfunction in your patients.
WHY THIS MODULE IS IMPORTANT
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is an extremely common intervention, but it has its own health risks and may not address underlying causes of hormonal imbalance. For some clinicians, HRT in women and men is still considered the fountain of youth; for others, it has become a dangerous area fraught with considerable risk that is avoided completely. Controversies and disagreements abound regarding how to diagnose and measure hormonal dysfunction; how to address safety concerns in prescribing HRT; the form, application, and dosage to use; and when and how to insert lifestyle, diet, nutraceutical, and botanical treatments.
The functional medicine approach is uniquely capable of responding to the controversy surrounding HRT by looking upstream to the wide variety of ways that the hypothalamic, pituitary, adrenal, thyroid, and gonadal (HPATG) axis modulates health. By applying dietary modifications, nutraceutical supplementation, and other lifestyle changes as a frontline treatment, the need for HRT can often be minimized or avoided.
Program Highlights:
- CME credit, if the CME option is selected for purchase
- A step toward becoming an IFM Certified Practitioner
- Course materials: PDFs of all presentations as well as MP3 audio and MP4 video files
- Pre- and post-course interactive videos and webinars
- More than 18 hours of lectures, Q&A sessions, and discussion (see the “Schedule and Educators” section for a full schedule of topics)
- 30-day access to IFM’s Toolkit, with hundreds of downloadable clinician resources that can be accessed and used in practice immediately after the course (intake forms, patient handouts, and assessment questionnaires)
- Morning movement activities
- Virtual networking opportunities
- Virtual exhibit hall featuring labs, nutraceutical companies, and practice management experts
- Opportunities to ask additional questions on a post-conference private discussion group moderated by IFM faculty
- Dietary Supplement Quality Educational Materials: Supplement Training Guide; includes clinician tools “Brand Quality Checklist” and “Dietary Supplement Ingredients Quality Checklist”
- Live Q&A with presenters
Clinical Competencies to Be Mastered Through the Module:
- Broadly understand…
- The impact stress has on the physiology and pathophysiology of the HPATG axis and the autonomic nervous system.
- The physiology and pathophysiology associated with melatonin, cortisol, DHEA, pregnenolone, TSH, T3, T4, RT3, testosterone, progesterone, estrogen, and, specifically, their signaling, sensitivity, activity, metabolism, and excretion.
- Recognize common antecedents and triggers and signs and symptoms associated with dysregulation of the HPATG axis.
- Evaluate the most important laboratory tests to use in assessing hormone-related dysfunction, and recognize common pitfalls of lab testing.
- Develop individualized treatment protocols using diet, nutraceuticals, botanicals, pharmaceuticals, and mind-body/behavioral interventions to address hormone dysregulation.
- Appropriately prescribe bioidentical hormones and understand important differences in routes of delivery, issues regarding safety and effectiveness, and HRT risks.
- Understand the controversies around breast cancer prevention and appropriately plan treatment programs for women.
- Recognize the role of the mind-body connection as antecedent, trigger, and mediator in the feed-forward cycle of chronic disease.