After years of educating nurses and nurse practitioners in functional medicine—and listening to the feedback of over 1,000 students who have been through my programs—I can confidently say this: choosing the right training program makes all the difference. There are a lot of programs out there claiming to teach root-cause care. Some offer short courses. Some promise board certifications. Some look flashy on the surface but leave nurses confused about how to actually apply wha

Functional Medicine’s Promise—and Its Problem Functional medicine has changed the way many of us think about health. It’s upstream, it’s root-cause, and it finally acknowledges what we as nurses have known all along: healing is about the whole person, not just a disease code. Patients leave functional medicine offices feeling heard in ways they never have before. They finally have a provider asking about their sleep, their stress, their nutrition, their story. But here’s the

Originally published in October 12, 2022. Updated November 8, 2025 by Dr. Brigitte Sager, DNP, IFMCP, Founder & CEO of the Institute for Functional Nursing One of the most common questions I get asked regarding practicing functional medicine as a nurse is about scope of practice, and for good reason! It is a confusing topic, and we do not want to put our hard-earned licenses at risk! I first created and taught the Functional Medicine for Nurses program to help RNs and NPs

This article was first published July 19, 2022 and updated November 8, 2025 by Dr. Brigitte Sager, DNP, IFMCP — Founder & CEO of the Institute for Functional Nursing (IFN). The Call to Heal Again In recent years, countless nurses have changed specialties, left the bedside, or questioned their calling altogether. The pace of modern healthcare, endless charting, and production metrics have left many of us wondering what happened to the art of nursing. I hear it constantly—from

You may have heard me talk on the podcast about how GLP-1 medications are here to stay. Whether you love them, hate them, feel conflicted about them, or believe a functional approach could reduce the need for them in some patients... the reality is that our patients are already on these medications. And many more will be. J.P. Morgan Research estimates that more than 30 million Americans may be on GLP-1 treatment by 2030, up from an estimated 20 million on branded GLP-1s in 2

I get questions all the time from family, friends, neighbors, other nurses, and my students about hormone replacement therapy. Should I take it? Is it safe? What about bioidentical hormones? Can I balance my hormones naturally? What would a functional approach look like? And honestly, I understand why these questions are coming up so often. Women are tired of being dismissed. We’re tired of being told that exhaustion, weight gain, sleep disruption, mood changes, heavy periods

Learn how holistic nursing certification aligns with functional nursing and supports professional growth.

In recent years, an interesting theme has been surfacing more and more in conversations within functional medicine. At conferences and gatherings of clinicians, researchers are talking about factors that influence health far beyond biochemistry and lab results. Two that come up often are joy and isolation- how connection, community, and emotional well-being shape our physiology just as much as diet, sleep, and nutrients. But I’ve been thinking about another factor that may be

When I was first diving into the world of functional medicine, I did what a lot of us do. I looked for protocols in the courses I took. I wanted something structured. Something safe. A set of steps I could follow with confidence and consistency. Something that would work for every patient. I was a primary care provider at the time, and I’d see people struggling with fatigue, gut issues, or hormonal imbalances and immediately think, What’s the functional medicine protocol f