Candace Adedokun, M.D., who graduated this past Saturday in School of Medicine Commencement, is the president and founder of Dynamic Health—an organization committed to improving the health of individuals through personalized coaching and providing education to future physicians.
Dynamic Health was created under the Office of Service Learning, and enrolls any adult looking to pursue better health.
“Dynamic Health has two central goals,” Candace says. “One goal is to improve the health of our community through our three pillars: nutrition, disease education, and exercise via one-on-one personalized coaching. A second goal is to educate medical students on motivational interviewing and preventative health, and to introduce other aspects of health outside of medications and procedures.”
Dynamic Health was created prior to the pandemic, just in time to help individuals in the community who needed options for optimizing their health during a global crisis. Regionally, the program is perfectly situated in Birmingham—where chronic conditions and disease are disproportionately high.
One of the program’s long-term goals is to continue improving individuals’ health in the community for the better.
Dynamic Health focuses on the holistic body and emphasizes the importance of a balanced diet. It helps individuals understand the components of good nutrition, providing education on nutrient-dense food.
The program also focuses on movement and exercise—and how taking these steps can drastically improve disease. According to the CDC, regular physical activity helps improve overall health and quality of life. “It also helps reduce risk of chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, many types of cancer, depression and anxiety, and dementia.”
Too, Dynamic Health educates the next generation of physicians to be holistically health-conscious in their future practice. Holistic health takes into account environment, well-being, stress, nutrition, movement, and other factors when seeking to understand chronic conditions.
When asked what the process has been like for her as a student, she says, “It has been such a rewarding process, filled with extensive learning and hard work. While balancing applying to residency programs, working on clinical rotations, and studying for STEP 2, I—along with my mentors and team—created the framework from scratch and worked throughout the year to build the organization. We also had to completely restructure the program to virtual, due to the pandemic, which presented its own unique set of problems.”
Candace says her life goals and career goals are synonymous; she aims to create the most effective change in the lives she impacts through health. “This organization is a manifestation of my desire to simply make a difference.”