Recently during an Independent Medical Alliance (IMA) hosted gathering, held in Orlando, Fla., physicians Katarina Lindley, DO, and Elizabeth Mumper, MD, spoke about the group’s four aims: fighting chronic disease; empowering patients; creating transparency in medicine; and “building a healthy culture.”

Lindley heads the IMA senior fellows program in family medicine, and Mumper is an IMA senior fellow in pediatrics. Mumper hosts the “Kid’s Corner” online video series, covering topics such as establishing good sleep habits in young children and when to seek medical care for a fever.

The IMA evolved from the Front-Line COVID Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), a network of doctors sharing best practices to treat COVID-19, “long COVID” and COVID shot side effects. Currently, about 15,000 physicians make up the IMA network; 48 are highly vetted senior fellows, working in 34 specialties in 16 countries.

What unites these doctors is a preference for individualized care over administrator-driven protocols, and a belief that collaborative care — working with patients, rather than telling patients what to do and walking away — is the only way to fight individual illnesses and promote lifelong health.

Before the formal dinner, Dr. Mumper, who taught in a pediatric residency program for 11 years, talked about what she sees as the failure of organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to confront the root causes of chronic illness. She noted that when pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Robert Lustig pointed out the dramatic rise in metabolic disorders among American children and suggested that an increase in sugar and sweetener consumption was to blame, the AAP downplayed his concerns.

Another core issue for IMA members is informed consent. “Part of that is that you can say ‘No,’” Mumper explained. On a related note, she suggested that patients do better when working with a physician with a “collaborative model, not authoritarian,” and noted that studies have shown the importance of the patient “being ready to change,” rather than just being told what to do.

Other doctors at the gathering noted that administrator-driven financial metrics at hospital-owned and chain practices limit the care that many doctors would prefer to provide to patients. Dale Wickstrom-Hill, a functional medicine physician who opened her own wellness clinic, said that she meets twice a week with her patients who have Type II diabetes, for more than an hour each visit. A major discovery for Wickstrom-Hill was that very obese people are often malnourished, and appropriate nutrition, rather than calorie reduction, plays a key part in her care. Typical results for her patients are that they no longer need to take insulin one month into their treatment plan.

Nutrition was a key area of discussion as well, with one doctor noting, “It starts early in life, the perception that your health is important.” This doctor, who grew up in Germany, offered the perspective that three things worth significant personal expenditure are “health, education and a roof over your head — get the best you can afford, and sleep well because of that.”

IMA members are cautiously optimistic that new Health and Human Services officials like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Dr. Marty Makary, and Dr. Vinay Prasad will spearhead policy changes. In particular, Prasad’s focus on evidence-based medicine gives these doctors hope that the CDC will change what they view as an overly aggressive vaccine schedule for children. Several doctors noted that, for example, hepatitis B vaccination of newborns with seronegative mothers is an intervention with observed harms and no proven benefits.

However, Mumper emphasized the importance of parents, not merely physicians’ groups, in changing the direction of children’s health nationwide. “It’s not until grassroots people make a political impact on our elected representatives,” she said, “that we see real change.”

More information on the multiyear, multi-million-dollar relationship between Coca-Cola and the AAP is available from PBS (pbs.org/newshour/show/coke) and the journal Public Health Nutrition (https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980022002506). Current AAP donors, which the organization calls “partners,” include baby formula makers Mead Johnson and Perrigo Nutritionals, and vaccine makers CSL Seqirus, GSK, Merck, Moderna, and Sanofi (aap.org/en/philanthropy/corporate-and-organizational-partners/current-partners/).

More information on the IMA can be found online (imahealth.org/).