Ilona Samara, MD Functional Medicine Specialist
Ilona Samara, M.D. obtained her medical degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine. Three years later, she graduated from Family Medicine and Preventive Health Residency at Health Sciences Center at the University of Oklahoma. She joined St. Anthony’s and has worked as a primary care physician for 9 years. It was during these years that she has experienced the frustration of not being able to provide the necessary tools for her patients’ road to wellness and understanding of their disease process.
She did not want to settle into this system and give in simply because “that’s just the way it is”. She embarked on a journey to find an effective medical approach to reversing chronic disease and doing something more than “just prescribing pills”. She wanted to be able to talk with patients about their lives, their obstacles, stress, sleep, and lifestyle habits, to truly understand their problems they are facing without the crippling time constraints in a conventional medicine model. She discovered through years of learning that the Functional Medicine approach is a way to provide medical care that is individualized, patient-centered, and effective! Functional medicine is emerging as a medical approach defining a state of health that is on a continuum with wellness on one end, and disease on the other.
Dr. Samara understands your needs at a personal level. A few years ago, she started having some health issues herself. She knew that there was a reason why she was struggling with her health. She found out her health issues were caused by the toxic environment. Through her knowledge and training in Functional Medicine, she knew how to address the underlying cause. Dr. Samara knew then that she had to become an expert in Environmental Illness, using her knowledge of Functional Medicine in order to treat her patients. Patients come to Dr. Samara with diagnoses they have been given. And most believe that these diagnoses will last forever! But, Dr. Samara works on addressing the patients’ imbalances while paying attention to their physiological processes, genetic predispositions, and surrounding environmental influences. She identifies the dysfunction, or chronic disease, and its cause, which may be different for each person. However, she asks the question, “why?” that is often not asked. Instead of settling for the disease, she works towards reversing it and providing the means towards a functional body, mind, and spirit – and thus a road to wellness.