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I became a physician to take care of people. For over thirty years I have practiced one kind of medicine. The kind that acts before disease does.
That kind of medicine has a name. DECODE to RECODE®. Reading a person’s biology earlier than standard care does. Interpreting it against what is optimal, not just normal. Acting on it. And building the systems that let more people access proactive, integrative precision care.
Scientist
I do not wait for symptoms to declare what your biology and genetics are already whispering. This is my standard of precision care.
Twenty years ago my clinic was among the first in the world to offer consumer-centric genetics testing. The Globe and Mail covered it. A CNN International documentary followed. We asked one question. Do you want to know?
My first book, Lifelines, was on telomere science. Elizabeth Blackburn, who shared the 2009 Nobel Prize for the discovery of telomerase, encouraged me to write it. Patients had been asking what proof I had that prevention works. The book answered them. Weight, blood sugar, supplementation, stress, and behavior, addressed integratively, slow telomere degradation and support cellular renewal.
Browse the writingI continue to work at the leading edge. That is why we offer GLP-1 pharmacogenomics today. GLP-1s are a once in a generation drug class, and the world is still figuring out how to use them well. We predict response from a person’s genetics before their first dose. And it is why, in collaboration with a genetics lab and a geneticist, we built a customized genetics panel curated from thirty years of clinical experience. Insightful, and for the first time in my career, affordable.
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Physician
I am a physician. The word is exact, and the practice behind it must be too.
Thirty years ago I founded the first holistic integrative clinic in the lobby of Mississauga Hospital, now part of Trillium Health Partners. The institutional relationship continues today. Then I moved to North York and founded the Executive Health Centre, where the work was to define what executive health and personalized medicine could do to improve performance. Peak health for peak performance, before the category had its name.
Today my practice is in Yorkville. Bespoke Wellness Group is a physician-led longevity clinic built on an integrative model in which an MD and an ND see the same patient at the same time. We built it, and we continue to lead it. My field is longevity medicine, including menopause, andropause, and metabolic health. The work is guided by our principle of DECODE to RECODE®. Built for depth, not volume.
Our patients include executives, entrepreneurs, Olympians, and health focused leaders. Our advisory work extends to global consulting firms, financial institutions, and leading organizations across Canada.
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Chief Wellness Officer
Health is also a workforce question. I have been answering it from inside Canadian companies for over thirty years.
My first corporate role was Medical Director at BMO Nesbitt Burns, from 1994 to 1998.
In 2014, I became Canada’s first Chief Wellness Officer at TELUS Communications. I held the role until 2017, building the function from inside one of the country’s largest organizations. What I learned there is that workforce health is not an HR program. It is a strategy.
Today the work continues through advisory engagements. The focus is metabolic health, the upstream lever most organizations do not measure. Physical stamina, mental clarity, energy, and resilience are performance characteristics. Bloodwork makes them visible, and virtual coaching acts on them while there is still time.
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Builder
When I saw a gap in care and access, I built something to close it.
In 1994, I cofounded Gimbel Eye Centre Toronto. Laser refractive surgery was in its earliest days, and most surgeons were still skeptical. We bet on its future.
In 2002, I cofounded Vivacare, Canada’s first online pharmacy. People had not yet used a shopping cart for something they would put in their body. Vivacare made it ordinary. We exited to Rexall.
In 2017, while still at TELUS, I built the first version of My Wellness File® on a simple and contrarian premise: a person’s medical information belongs to them, not the system that produced it. The platform put it back in their hands, with the choice of who to share it with. It is still in use today.
Health In A Box® was built on the same principle: people come first. It is a physician-led preventive health program that turns insights into action at scale. Thirty years of clinical practice, now reaching people who want to practice proactive health care.
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Thought Leader
Above all, do no harm. That is the oath. The work that follows it is to help people stay healthy, before the system has to step in.
Healthcare today is sick care. The system is overwhelmed by people already ill, leaving prevention to chance and noise. A physician’s job is to give people the data and tools to act upstream, while the levers are still theirs to pull.
Wellness has filled the gap with influencers playing clinician, simplifying biology until people chase the wrong things. The answer is not less information. It is curated, experienced, clinically interpreted information. Healthspan, not just lifespan.
AI is now part of the conversation. I am building for people first, with AI in support. Human centric, clinician accountable, technology in service of care.
I have set out these positions in three books: Lifelines, Welcome Back! and We Are Not Okay. A fourth is in progress with Jane Francisco, Editor in Chief of Good Housekeeping and Editorial Director of the Hearst Lifestyle Group. I have made them as a contributor to Maclean’s, Chatelaine and The Globe and Mail, and on television at CP24, Breakfast Television, CTV Your Morning, and CBC News. The positions have not changed. When the science shifts, I say so. When we do not yet know, I say that too.
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is to be preferred to cure.
I speak to boards, leadership teams, and conferences on metabolic health, longevity, and the economics of prevention. If you would like me at your event, start a conversation below.
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