ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Welcome to a special episode of Flip Your Script, a vodcast by the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, hosted by ACLM President Dr. Padmaja Patel. In each episode, we explore how lifestyle medicine is helping clinicians and leaders reimagine the future of healthcare.
In this episode, “Passing the Baton: The Legacy We Carry Forward,” Dr. Patel marks her final episode as host with a conversation with Susan Benigas, CEO Emeritus and Senior Advisor at the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. Benigas reflects on her journey with ACLM, from joining the organization when it had just 380 members and one part-time staff member to helping build a global community working to advance lifestyle medicine as the foundation of health and healthcare.
Together, Dr. Patel and Benigas look back on the decisions, challenges, relationships, and shared sense of purpose that helped shape ACLM’s growth. They explore what it means to challenge a healthcare system largely built around managing disease, why lifestyle medicine must remain focused on addressing root causes and restoring health, and what it has taken to move the field toward greater recognition, clinical integration, and impact.
The conversation also gets personal as Benigas reflects on leadership, sacrifice, connection, faith, and the people who helped make ACLM’s growth possible. As both leaders prepare to pass the baton, they discuss what the next generation of lifestyle medicine leaders must hold onto, what the field cannot afford to lose as it grows, and why staying true to the unique value proposition of lifestyle medicine will be critical to the work ahead.
More than a look back, this episode is a conversation about what comes next and the responsibility that comes with growing momentum for lifestyle medicine. It is also a fitting close to Dr. Patel’s time as host of Flip Your Script and a reminder that while one chapter may be ending, the work to transform healthcare continues.
If you're interested in lifestyle medicine, healthcare transformation, clinical practice, chronic disease, health restoration, healthcare leadership, payment reform, policy, medical education, food as medicine, or the future of lifestyle medicine, this is an episode you won't want to miss.
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The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) is the medical professional society for physicians and other professionals dedicated to clinical and worksite practice of lifestyle medicine as the foundation of a transformed and sustainable healthcare system. Lifestyle medicine is a medical specialty that uses therapeutic lifestyle interventions as a primary modality to treat chronic conditions including, but not limited to, cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, and obesity.
Lifestyle medicine-certified clinicians are trained to apply evidence-based, whole-person, prescriptive lifestyle change to treat and, when used intensively, often reverse such conditions. Applying the six pillars of lifestyle medicine—a whole-food, plant-predominant eating pattern, physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, avoidance of risky substances, and positive social connections—also provides effective prevention for these conditions.
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