We were lucky to catch up with Latania Booker recently and have shared our conversation below.

Latania, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear stories from your time in school/training/etc.

I remember being a cheerleader in undergrad and our cheer coach would make us run a mile before practice. I hated running and so did my body. The first 2 times I ran a mile without stopping, my body was so overwhelmed that I puked. Fast forward a few years to medical school and I ended up turning to running as a way to relieve stress and anxiety. As a wife, mother and medical student, I had a lot on my plate. With this new load of responsibilities came a whole lot of anxiety. Running laps around the basketball court while listening to audio lectures was my peace. Ultimately my newfound love of running would turn into running marathons and chasing medals.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a board-certified internal medicine, MD and I believe that nutrition is the true key to health. In our western medicine, culture, physicians and patients alike have been conditioned to believe that the only way to achieve health is to name a group of symptoms and prescribe a pill to treat those symptoms. The truth is, the science says something different. We have decades of research and data that proves that the way to reverse metabolic disorders, which are the leading cause of death and disability in developed societies, is through dietary and lifestyle changes. My mission is to change the way medicine is practiced by educating physicians in nutrition so that they can counsel their patients in dietary and lifestyle modification to achieve better health outcomes. I’m currently working full time as a travel hospitalist and I do some nutrition and lifestyle coaching on the side, but my new focus is creating educational content that physicians can use to educate their patients in dietary and lifestyle modification.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When I was a second year medical student studying for the exam that would ultimately determine my future as a physician, my father died unexpectedly. I remember receiving the news of my father‘s passing while I was at a medical conference in San Francisco. The reality of not seeing my father when I returned home to Texas, hit me like a brick wall. I recall bursting into tears immediately and feeling overwhelmed with sadness. I believe the greatest illustration of my resilience was the way I managed my grief while simultaneously studying 8 to 10 hours per day to prepare for my step one board exam. I managed to score in the 97th percentile which put me in a position to choose from all of the top medical specialties. Although my board score gave me the pick of the litter, I chose a medical specialty that was not as competitive and is often times undervalued. Ten plus years later, I stand by my decision to become an internal medicine physician because I believe it puts me in a unique position to reach more people and to be the change that I want to see.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The lesson that I had to unlearn is the western philosophy of the practice of medicine. In medical school, we are taught to listen to the constellation of symptoms, perform an exam and order test to confirm a diagnosis with the ultimate end goal of prescribing a pill to “fix” the problem. This approach has been prioritized over understanding the root cause of an illness and eliminating the cause. As an internal medicine, hospitalist, I see the same patients coming into the hospital with the same complaints and unfortunately, with each hospital admission, they simply end up taking more pills. The sad thing is that the pills don’t seem to actually work and nobody is healing or feeling better. I have been on this journey of teaching myself, dietary and other lifestyle modification tools that have been proven to reverse metabolic disorders and restore health and vitality. I believe that nutrition will be the foundation of the future of medicine. I am excited to be at the forefront of this health and wellness movement.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://physiciannutritionblog.com/
• Instagram: @doctortaniamd

Image Credits
Token Photography