Meet Dr. Smith
Anita Smith, M.D.
Training summary
Medical school: University of Kentucky School of Medicine, 2000
Residency: Emory University Family Medicine Residency Program, 2003
Fellowship: Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine, University of Arizona Medical School, 2019
Functional Medicine: Institute for Functional Medicine Certified Practitioner (IFMCP), 2019
Board-Certified, American Board of Family Medicine, 2003-Present
The Early Years: Conventional Medical Training
Starting out on a conventional medicine path I graduated from the the University of Kentucky School of Medicine in 2000. From there I trained at Emory University’s Family Medicine Residency program which I completed in 2003. I then started out in private practice, quickly realized I didn’t enjoy working for other physicians and in 2005 acquired Vinings Medical Center, a sole-physician family medicine clinic in Atlanta. Things were going great and I thoroughly enjoyed being a sole practitioner in a small community nestled within a huge city. A few years into practice I started encountering an increasing number of patients experiencing fatigue, brain fog and myriad other vague issues. They were eating reasonably well, exercising and seemingly healthy. Pursuing their reported symptoms we drew typical medical labs, addressed anything that came up but for the most part this subset of patients had labs which were almost always normal. One night, we were having dinner with a dear friend, the French mother of a close friend here in Atlanta, who lived with her husband in Italy. The server came, she ordered a glass bottle of spring water and I ordered an aluminum-canned soda like any normal person would. After placing our beverage order she sat there glaring at me across the table with a searing look on her face. She said, “I thought you were are a doctor,” to which I curiously replied, “Yes, nothing has changed.” I was caught off guard when she exclaimed, “You’re an idiot for ordering something like that to drink! You should know better…but apparently you don’t so let me educate you.” Needless to say that was my last such beverage.
In the years that followed I sought out information on healthy living. Article after article, product test after product test I came to the same overarching conclusion – making small changes (like avoiding canned soda) can move the needle toward better health. Small changes build upon themselves over time. Learning about healthy living evolved into incorporating healthy habits about the food we eat, the beverages we consume, the makeup I wore, the sunscreens and detergents we use, and even the water we drink. I shared what I learned with my patients and many started noticing a difference.
Deep dive into chronic diseases
In the early 2010s a series of events led me to start hunting down why I, like a growing number of my patients, wish I felt as good as my lab reports made me out to be. By this time I was eating significantly better than I did in the mid-2000s and made a ton of lifestyle adjustments. I now had a family and enjoyed going for daily walks with my German Short-haired Pointer which, as anyone who knows the breed can attest, requires daily exercise which literally pulled me out the door even on days when I just didn’t feel like going outside. I was still working too much and not taking enough time off from work but that’s true for nearly everyone. I noticed increasing fatigue setting in as time went on and simply increased my consumption of organic teas to compensate for it…I’m getting older and there is a lot going on I would tell myself. Interestingly, my spouse felt the same way but we didn’t give it much thought.
The constellation of evolving symptoms prompted me to go hunting for more information (just as I do on a daily basis for my patients) and I ran across a considerable amount of literature implicating Lyme disease. Giving it almost zero possibility, but knowing we were raised in Minnesota (where Lyme is endemic) we ran labs and sure enough I tested positive for chronic Lyme disease. Out of curiosity my spouse had labs run and his were also positive. Arriving at the point of a working diagnosis was reassuring as it pointed us in the direction of treatment – or so it seemed.
As many who have dealt with chronic Lyme disease have experienced, conventional medicine often debates whether this is even a real process and / or how to treat it. I didn’t like the options or approaches, and so off I went again hunting, researching, reading, listening to lectures, ascertaining which physicians (nationally and internationally) had the best rates of treatment success, attending their chronic disease management conferences and ultimately found myself squarely in the world of functional medicine.
Functional & Integrative Medicine Training (and a Huge Reality Check)
After nearly a decade of wandering around the functional medicine space, implementing many of its strategies successfully for my own family’s health, and seeing early improvements in my patients’ health, it was time to pursue formal functional & integrative medicine training. In February 2019 I completed a Fellowship in Integrative Medicine Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona School of Medicine and in mid-2019 became an Institute for Functional Medicine Certified Practitioner (IFMCP) making me one of the few medical doctors in the country at the time to complete both programs. I was incorporating what I could where I could when I could, trying to fit in everything into my still-overloaded life. Then everything became incredibly real and time stopped when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in September 2019. Despite a normal mammogram six months earlier, cancer had been brewing in the background while I was pursuing a healthier life. That’s really when the rubber met the road, but everything I had experienced and learned served me very well at just the right time. Through a combination of conventional, functional, integrative, and holistic care, I am thriving and healthier today than when I was diagnosed. That’s my journey. I hope I can help you on yours.