The Most Recognized Health Coaching Experts in the Functional Medicine Movement
Our mission is to make personalized wellness a reality for the world.
Functional Medicine empowers patients and practitioners to work together to resolve the underlying causes of disease and promote optimal wellness through diet and lifestyle change. Learn how it's changing the game in healthcare.
Our innovative curriculum prepares you to partner with a Functional Medicine practitioner on a collaborative care team, start your own independent coaching practice, work in a corporate wellness setting, or define your own unique career path. Get started here.
Access the gold standard in health coach education through The Functional Medicine Coaching Academy’s three program offerings: Health Coach Certification Program, Specialty Courses, and Short Courses. Choose your path now.
OUR STORY
The Functional Medicine Coaching Academy (FMCA) was founded in 2014 by two women whose personal experiences with the conventional healthcare system—both as providers and as patients—drove them to find a better way to be well. A way that listened to and treated the whole self, not just the parts that could be medicated.
Founder Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum spent nearly five decades making healthcare and education more holistic and innovative. With a PhD in clinical psychology, Sandi specialized in positive psychology, cognitive behavioral therapy, and mind-body medicine, and served as teacher and the director of a clinic for Attention Deficit Disorders (ADD). She is a pioneer in her fields, having implemented programs such as the use of neurofeedback with patients and becoming the first-ever psychologist to earn certification through The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM).
Sandi partnered with co-founder Elyse Wagner, a certified nutritionist and licensed mental health counselor, while working together as mental health professionals in Chicago. With experience in health coaching as well as a dual master’s degree in holistic nutrition and clinical psychology, Elyse’s personal journey to overcome chronic illness fuels her passion for helping others take ownership of their health. The two women connected over their shared belief in the transformative power of Functional Medicine, and together decided to fill a gap in the Functional Medicine model. That's when their vision of Functional Medicine Health Coaching was born.