After attending the Harvard Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives conference in 2008, Principe founded WellBeingMD™, and the WellBeingMD™ Center for Life, an integrated 2,400 square-foot space housing a teaching kitchen, educational center, and functional movement studio. Built upon the premise that community is the currency of wellness, WellBeingMD™ is now recognized as the most comprehensive internal medicine and wellness provider in the Chicago region.  

Dr. Principe attributes much of the program’s success to the WellBeingMD™ team, who live the core principles of active and healthy lifestyles. “We became the model of how we could transform ourselves.  Patients can see that we’re walking the walk and talking the talk - a key factor in motivating patients.  Seeing our transformation inspires patients to take action in their own lives.” 

The team members’ personal success transformed the practice as well, leading to the development of A Roadmap to Wellness™, a six-week course designed to promote wellness and reverse factors that contribute to the metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and other chronic diseases. David Eisenberg, MD, Director of Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives, identified the Roadmap to Wellness program as an “exemplary model of health care transformed; health care that is focused on wellness and self-care”.

Billed as group medical visits, over two hundred members have completed the program with promising results and positive feedback.  Dr. Principe facilitates each 1½ hour session, fielding individual questions during meetings and giving personal attention in assessments that take place before and after group visits.  Patients pay a small out-of-pocket fee for food and administrative costs; the medical component is reimbursed through insurance.  So far the practice has encountered no resistance from either patients or insurance companies. 

Participants of the program learn how lifestyle relates to health and disease, but perhaps more importantly, they experience the recommended actions first-hand.  Dr. Principe shares his enthusiasm for cooking and eating healthy meals with the group, encouraging creative thinking, “here are some wonderful fruits and vegetables… now go be creative”, and challenging group members to discover the endless array of appealing dishes that can be based around, for example, a humble can of beans. 

Asserting that Lifestyle Medicine must fit into existing economic, social, and political systems, Dr. Principe has committed to make Lifestyle Medicine real for all Americans.  “For most busy people it is easier to go to McDonalds.  Altering that option has become for me a demonstration project where we can now equip them with the tools for lifestyle change that allow healthier choices, affirming that we can make a difference in the lives of ordinary people.”  Seeking to test whether the program could positively shape the lives of young people, a group of past patients joined Dr. Principe in awarding a scholarship for the Roadmap to Wellness program to a local high school student.  Over the course of the program, the young man became an integral member of the group and made significant changes within his own life, affirming the promise of this approach for young patients with lifestyle-related health risks.  

Dr. Principe has become convinced of the power of group education in healthcare, now preferring a group setting over individual medical visits for chronic disease.  “You can accomplish more in a group than with individuals.  Patients who have gone through the group program are clinically easier to care for as they come back into the office more knowledgeable and engaged in their care.  What I love most is that this empowers patients to take charge of their lives.  They’re not looking to me to take control.  This approach changes the paradigm.”  He describes the shift in thinking from viewing oneself as a health provider to viewing oneself as a health protector.

Dr. Principe offers these words of wisdom for implementing a successful lifestyle-based group visit:

• 1)    You must believe in it yourself
• 2)    Your patients will discover that the group will not diminish the personal attention they receive
• 3)    The group becomes a supportive community, developing a powerful dynamic among group members.

The question is often raised of whether lifestyle change can be sustained over time. Dr. Principe has seen lasting change among his patients who take part in the group programs, maintaining that “if we’re really educating and motivating patients, lifestyle change can be sustained.”  WellBeingMD™ offers an array of options for continued support, including the Healthy for Life Program, a series of classes offered to Roadmap to Wellness graduates.  Patients can enroll in yoga, functional fitness, Pilates, healthy cooking & baking classes, and can schedule a massage or counseling session – all on site.  In addition to physical health, the Center for Life emphasizes mindful living, gratitude, optimism, and appreciation, translating into a better society and better world.  “We are creating ambassadors of well-being.  Patients realize they can change themselves and then they realize that they can change the world they live in.”

Because this model is in continual development, he describes it as highly reliant on creativity, ingenuity and a passion for doing the right thing in the context of current economic, political, and social pressures.  “We’ve found that partnering with and marketing to early adopters is the best model for change and growth.  Our center will have been in operation for just one year this September, but the growth that has resulted in the clinical practice has been exponential.”  In contrast to an industry downsizing as a method of survival, WellBeingMD™ is thriving and now adding an energetic, passionate nurse practitioner, Carrie Ingrisano, who will focus on women’s health care.  They are also in search of another physician to join the lifestyle medicine based practice.  Dr. Principe reminds all those interested in developing this type of practice to heed the advice of Walt Disney, that “All your dreams can come true, if you have the courage to pursue them.”

To learn more about Dr. Principe and his approach to Lifestyle Medicine, visit the WellBeingMD™ website at:

http://www.wellbeingmd.com/Home_Page.html