The time has come to let the cat out of the bag! We are absolutely thrilled to announce that McCall McPherson, PA-C has teamed up with Alive + Well as our functional and integrative medicine practitioner.  

McCall brings her experience as both a patient and a professional to the Alive + Well community. Having experienced her own debilitating health issues, she knows what it means to seek healing. Creating health is her personal passion and mission – both for herself and her patients. 

McCall’s practice Modern Medicine will be located in Alive + Well upon our grand opening in early 2018.

We invited McCall to share her background and perspective on what it means to discover the joy of being Alive + Well.

Meet McCall

Tell us a little about your professional background and areas of expertise. 

I ended up in the fascinating niche of functional and integrative medicine for a few reasons.

Probably the most profound was my own health problem, hypothyroidism, which I simply could not get managed. Hypothyroidism left me almost non-functional for about six months. It wasn’t until I found an integrative physician to truly sort it out that I got my life back.

The other impetus for switching to my current track was spending a few years practicing traditional psychiatry. In the realm of traditional psychiatry, I started noticing that many of my patients had underlying physiological conditions that were causing or contributing to their mental health struggles. And many of these issues weren’t being screened for through traditional practices. So I began my pursuit of integrative and functional psychiatry. As years passed, I expanded my practice to include treatment of a full scope of functional medicine.

In your opinion, what role does functional  medicine play in health and wellness?

While conventional medicine is in the business of treating sickness, I believe functional medicine is rooted in creating health. We need so much more than medications to make us healthy. My favorite part of functional medicine is taking women who are exhausted, hardly functioning, and feeling hopeless, and turning them back into their vibrant, energetic, and happy selves.

What is your perspective on Alive + Well’s  mission and value to the community?

The two things I love most about Alive + Well’s mission are:

1. the value we put on creating a way for people to reach their highest selves, and

2. the emphasis on community to help us achieve it.

What is your personal approach/philosophy to maintaining a healthy balance in life?

Realistic expectations are everything. It’s the small but consistent changes we are able to make that make the biggest impact in our health. Throw the impossibly dogmatic ones out the window!

Who/what inspires you?

People who are unapologetically themselves.

What’s your favorite self-care habit?

Definitely an early bedtime.

What was the last experience that made you a stronger person?

Hurricane Harvey. I created a crowdsourced civilian rescue system that went viral. We ended up saving over 2000 people and went on to later host a  benefit which raised over $100,000. This not only pushed me completely out of my comfort zone, it taught me that you are never too small or too far away to make a difference.

You can find more about McCall’s academic accomplishments, plus a more in-depth understanding of who she is and how she practices on her personal website at www.mccallmcpherson.com, or the websites of her practices at modernmedicinegroup.com and modernthyroidclinic.com.