Transformation happens in the collective actions of an inspired few. Those Courageous enough to live, boldly, at the forefront of the future. Some call them deviants. We call them tribe.
“It takes courage and a serious commitment to Show Up as a health professional. It’s a particularly expensive, time-consuming, and stressful calling, perhaps one of the few professions from which our society collectively and fully expects both creative brilliance and infallibility – a daunting challenge and a noble pursuit.
If practitioners have the strength to experience being deflated by this system and still courageously and tenaciously rise above it, faithfully pursuing their belief in their original calling, then
We will meet them in that mission.
They deserve the chance to hone their skills and their courage in order to reimagine how they deliver health care. We, at SAFM, ardently accept our obligation to provide what this tribe needs in order to do this work and return rich vitality and potential to the patients/clients they serve.”
-Tracy Harrison, Founder & Lead Educator
We spend more and more money on “healthcare” and yet have less and less health to show for it. Today’s disease-care industry has largely settled for the belief that managing or alleviating illness is the best we can do.
It’s not.
At the School of Applied Functional Medicine (SAFM), we’re taking significant action to make an impact through a more novel approach: prevention and reversal. Our mission is about transforming healthcare, and the dedicated practitioners delivering it, through the powerful combination of functional medicine and savvy clinical partnership. It’s a Good Medicine Movement™ compelled by a vision that honors conventional disease care and establishes a true Health care system anchored in personalized, systems-driven, root cause medical science.
Good Medicine maximizes functional Health and, as a result, minimizes disease, restoring human vitality and potential.
Founded in 2011, SAFM was born out of Tracy’s restlessness to make a substantial impact and her own challenging journey to do so. After multiple functional medicine educational programs, she knew the science. She knew a lot about functional medicine. She even had the certificates to “prove” her competence. But she didn’t know nearly enough about how to apply it to – sustainably and reliably – help people get and, more importantly, stay well.
To achieve the mission, SAFM had to provide more than just more knowledge in a binder. The program would have to deliver what other functional medicine education programs don’t: rich practical training. Practitioners would have to become capable and confident in applying the science and the principles in order to facilitate significant change for their unique patients or clients.
Today, this differentiator is what we call “devil in the detail” of practical application. And our students are steeped in it throughout their Applied Functional Medicine Certification (AFMC) program. Through the thoughtful integration of scientific rigor, complex case practice and repetition, and systems-based thinking, SAFM’s practitioners are actually trained to deliver better health care. And are transformed – personally and professionally – in the process.
Our tribe is anchored in the innate power of the human body and relentless in its focus on what’s true and possible. We acknowledge the burden of disease and remain galvanized in our belief that functional medicine and savvy clinical partnership – with our patients, our clients, and our peers – is at the heart of any quality, sustainable health care solution.
Our students view the world through a different lens, one that creates and nurtures synergy across modalities and geographies and refuses to allow credential hierarchy to distract us from our mission. Practitioners are encouraged to set ego aside, question all that they’ve learned, and courageously seek truth regardless of conflict with the status quo. And we’re committed to ensuring SAFM stays that way.
Creating rich, engaging community in a virtual world is challenging, but our mission can’t be achieved without it. Inspiration and the support of likeminded people who share a common vision for something bigger transforms education into empowerment.
Tracy Harrison’s vision and values are the roots of the entire SAFM experience. A scientist who left the high-tech corporate world in 2007, Tracy built a wildly successful, multi-modality practice utilizing functional medicine principles. In 2011, she founded The School of Applied Functional Medicine.
Tracy is a powerhouse of applied functional medicine insight (among other talents), which she generously shares with SAFM students and public audiences. Her energy, authenticity, and relatable analogies demystify the complexities of medicine making learning fun and engaging. As a dynamic speaker and natural teacher, Tracy drives health practitioners to a level of clinical savvy on systems “interconnectedness”, empowering and inspiring the capabilities and confidence that distinguish AFMC practitioners from the rest.
A scientist and systems engineer at heart, Tracy holds three degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and further graduate education from Bridgeport University and The Institute for Functional Medicine.