We are thrilled to have an expert, dedicated volunteers here at FMANT. Click on their names below to get their contact information and to learn a little more about each of them.
Executive Management
Executive Director – Betty Murray, CN, IFMCP, CHC
Betty Murray, CN, IFMCP, CHC is a Certified Nutritionist and Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner with the Institute for Functional Medicine. Betty is on a mission to radically change the health of Americans. And she believes that medicine is in serious need of an overhaul. This new paradigm of medicine must be built on the foundation of functional medicine, which brings a biology systems-based approach designed to uncover underlying causes not just address symptoms. She continues to practice nutrition coaching with clients with a focus on nutritional interventions for those suffering with autoimmune conditions, digestive disorders and complex health issues.
Through her business ventures, she has developed a medical management firm with facilities for physicians to work in-tandem with allied health professionals to provide preventative and proactive healthcare.Betty is the founder of a Minerva Medical Consulting the management firm that manages Living Well Health & Wellness Center in Dallas. Minerva is a medical practice management company that develops comprehensive integrative centers bringing physicians, nutritionists, chiropractic and health coaches with counselors and mind-body services under one roof in an collaborative and integrative team approach meeting the needs of the savvy healthcare consumer. Living Well Health & Wellness Center in Dallas is the flagship center founded in 2005. As a leader in the functional medicine movement, she founded the Functional Medicine Association of North Texas, a sister organization to the Institute for Functional Medicine bringing functional medical training to health care providers in north Texas.
She splits her time between private practice, the management firm and her volunteer activities including acting as a board member with the Gluten Intolerance Group of Greater Dallas, The Functional Medicine Association of North Texas and as an Advisory Board Member for the SMU School of Applied Kinesiology and Sports Management.
Advisory Board
Dr. Mack attended Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada where she studied chemistry and then biochemistry and went on to receive her degree in medicine in 1988. She then completed a family medicine residency program at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Subsequently she taught both undergraduate and graduate students in medicine at McGill University as an associate professor between 1990-1994.
Dr. Mack moved to North Texas with her horses in 1995 where she has been in private practice since. Her practice is now exclusively dedicated to the practice of functional medicine. Through the Institute for Functional Medicine, she has trained extensively and maintains an active membership.
Margaret Christensen, MD, IFMCP
Dr. Margaret Christensen is passionate about helping her clients create health through treating the root cause of illness and hormone imbalance. A challenging personal health journey led her to the science based, whole systems approach of Functional Medicine where she is passionate about educating clients and colleagues alike on how to heal the whole person.
As a Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner (IFMCP), she currently serves as an associate faculty member for the Institute for Functional Medicine (FunctionalMedicine.org) where she teaches physicians and health care practitioners nationally and internationally on the role of environmental toxicants, epigenetics, nutrition and lifestyle exposures on hormonal health and chronic complex disease.
As a board certified Ob Gyn (FACOG) Dr. Margaret has had a long-standing interest in the myriad factors affecting hormonal imbalances and how to safely treat hormone related illnesses from a whole systems standpoint.
Dr Christensen graduated with honors from Rice University, received her M.D. with honors from Baylor College of Medicine, subsequently completing her residency at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas (BUMC), with honors. She served as adjunct faculty for the BUMC residency teaching program for 10 years, while running a large Ob-Gyn practice that included the only nurse midwives in private practice in Dallas. She is the co-author of the award winning Birthing A Better Way: 12 Secrets to Natural Childbirth book.
A popular lecturer and speaker both locally and nationally, she holds regular seminars on Detoxification and Hormonal Balancing, Mother-Daughter Coming of Age workshops, Sacred Sexuality, and life-transforming retreats on Creating Health from the Inside Out. In addition, she has lectured at SMU in the departments of medical anthropology, and Perkins School of Theology, passionately combining her interests in anthropology, cross cultural healing, quantum physics and spirituality.
Along the way she managed to birth, nurse and is raise four wonderful children who are her teachers — so understands first hand the challenges of working mothers to create balance, health and well being in their lives.
Heidi Iratcabal, N.D., brings a great many talents to her work. At the center of her impressive credentials is a lifelong passion for the mind-body connection and she uses this to unlock each person’s unique ability to achieve optimal wellness and vitality.
A naturopathic practitioner, Dr. Iratcabal is board-certified by the American Alternative Medical Association, an Institute for Functional Medicine Certified Practitioner, board-certified by The American Alternative Medical Association, and a Doctor of Pastoral Therapy. Her interest in alternative medicine was heightened during her time as a professional athlete, and includes a focus on chronic disease, functional endocrinology, hormone balancing, chronic pain, and athletic performance.
Her practice, Center of Health in Dallas, truly lives up to its name. Dr. Iratcabal gets to the heart of each client’s health concerns and starts by getting to know them as individuals.
Through her combination of extensive training and innate intuition, Dr. Iratcabal works closely with clients to understand their health history (both physical and emotional) and what natural modalities she can apply to bring their minds and bodies back to their inherently healthy state.
After clients have filled out detailed questionnaires, Dr. Iratcabal engages them in a conversation about their lives and, similar to investigators on the TV show CSI, as she looks for clues about their physical and emotional health. Often, Dr. Iratcabal can tell a lot from a person’s appearance or the way they walk into her office. She may also sense sources of physical or emotional dysfunction through a Korean technique called Sugi, a system of using acupuncture points to feel the body’s pulses through touch.
“What a person tells me on paper and who they really are is often very different,” says Dr. Iratcabal. “That’s when it becomes like CSI, trying to figure out the source of the problem. The body is an amazing machine and it doesn’t go out of whack unless there is a cause.”
Through the diagnostic process, it may be revealed that someone who thought they had asthma actually has a food sensitivity, or that a major source of someone’s insomnia is a troubled marriage.
Much of the care Dr. Iratcabal delivers requires clients to make lifestyle changes to take control over issues that are making them sick, such as poor diet or a stressful work situation. She provides support every step of the way, even consulting with clients over Skype if they can’t come to her office.
In lieu of pharmaceuticals or man-made products, Dr. Iratcabal helps clients improve their health through nutritional counseling, supplement support, hormone balancing, laser therapy and more. She applies whatever combination of protocols each person’s body requires, never pushing them beyond where they’re capable of going at the time.
John Roland, MD is the medical director of of several First Choice Emergency Room facilities in North Texas. He continues to practice emergency medicine in addition to the management role.
Dr. Roland received his BS in Biochemistry from the University of Colorado and his MD from UT Medical School at San Antonio. He completed his residency at Duke University and has 17 years experience in the field of emergency medicine. Prior to joining First Choice Emergency Room, Dr. Roland served as the ER Director of ETMC Pittsburg and Gilmer and a staff physician at North Texas Medical Center. Dr. Roland currently lives in Rockwall, Texas and has four children.