Amy Drab, who has worked for more than 17 years as a physician assistant in family practice, OB/GYN and urgent/emergent care, has joined the staff of Foundations Medical Center in Santa Rose Beach. Drab says the practice’s focus on functional medicine fits her experience and approach to healing. 

 “I discovered functional medicine’s healing potential early on in my career, when I realized that something was missing in the ‘pill for every ill’ philosophy that’s commonly embraced in medicine,” she says. “I also noticed that the patients I saw often had a long list of unexplainable or unattributable symptoms. I believe that patients are generally telling the truth and that their symptoms are real, and so I wanted to find out why these patients were so ill.”

Her concerns became personal when she discovered that her daughters’ reflux, diarrhea, allergies, asthma, eczema, joint pain, seborrheic dermatitis and “generally grumpy” dispositions had one root cause: food sensitivities. “Everything resolved once the root was addressed,” she says. “Where four prescription medications were once needed to control asthma and allergy symptoms, there was now no need for any prescriptions. The lens of functional medicine was the vehicle for healing my family when nothing else worked. My practice of medicine was forever changed.”

In addition to her clinical experience, Drab has been an associate professor of physician assistant education at Kettering College of Medical Arts in Ohio. She received her master’s degree in physician assistant studies from the University of Nebraska.

For appointments, call 850-660-6701 or visit FoundationsMedicalCenter.com.