We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Aaron Hartman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Aaron below.

Aaron, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.

Defining moment was when I first veered off the path from standard medical care with my daughter Anna. We were told to put a feeding tube into her to make her gain weight and we opted not to do that the result was being reported to Child Protective Services and a whole host of other things. Which entirely changed my medical trajectory and the way I practice medicine

Aaron, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Dr. Hartman’s journey with functional medicine started when he & his wife adopted their first daughter from foster care. She has cerebral palsy & countless dietary issues. They went from specialist to specialist and, even as a physician, he felt let down & confused. His daughter’s health struggles forced him to confront an uncomfortable realization: Our current healthcare system doesn’t have all the answers. His wife, however, refused to give up hope. She ultimately pointed him to functional medicine. His daughter & other two kids began to thrive. After years in family practice, he felt called to make a dramatic shift.

He now helps patients identify leverage points in key areas of their lifestyle & health that harness their body’s remarkable power to heal and begin living the vibrant life they deserve. He has become the ‘go to’ doctor for difficult and hard cases in central Virginia.

As a clinical researcher, Dr. Hartman has been involved with over 60 clinical studies, he is the founder of the Virginia Research Center, and currently is serving as an Assistant Clinical Professor of Family Medicine at the VCU School of Medicine.

In 2016 he founded Richmond Integrative and Functional Medicine.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

One of the most beneficial things of my career in learning has been a broad and wide scope of learning having learned to work on my own car work on a farm work with my hands learning languages travel and everything I’ve done has actually broadened my scope of interest but also the way my brain thinks. I had no idea that my scope of interests would build a foundation for my functional medicine career where I literally have to be knowledgeable about all fields of medicine and be able to apply them to complex cases and even sometimes diagnosis that no one else has seen or heard of before. One of the places that helped me appreciate this was during my seminary education where I have to take a topic which I chose was adoption and take a deep dive into it and learn how people thought about it thousands of years ago as well as how we view it today. This process of learning how to think deeply about something and then write about it was training for my brain on how to deal with patients with complex issues and apply book knowledge to real world experience in people’s health .

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

My reputation in the marketplace is built on several things the first is my skill set in medicine I have to be good at my craft or my art. Working in the hospital and the emergency room and in the clinic exposed me to a lot of different situations but also other specialists I was able to learn from them as well as being known by them. But this is a basic for any field of expertise you have to be good at what you do that doesn’t necessarily build reputation it just makes you good at what you do. The next thing was integrity. You have to be honest with yourself and your patience and those around you and works the best of your ability. When you make mistakes you have to admit them correct the direction and move on. Having integrity and all these things is the gas that takes reputation and super fuels it. Last thing is I give back in the community. My wife and I have been active with helping at risk youth and other populations in the local area, supporting schools, and engaged in giving back. It’s just one of our values and who we are but combining this this honesty with integrity and excellence creates a reputation that was known about in the local marketplace

Contact Info:

• Website: www.RichmondFunctionalMedicine.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/rvaintegrative
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/rvaintegrative
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-hartman
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AaronHartmanMD

Image Credits
my pics