Functional Medicine for Nurses™

You will be notified of books to purchase for the course prior to the course start date.  You can expect to pay less than $40 for instant access to digital copies of these books, and a bit more for print copies available to order online.

Yes, 84 contact hours

Integrative Nurse Coach Academy is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.

Provider approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing, Provider Number 17700 for 84 contact hours.

This program is 84 contact hours divided over the course of 12 weeks. This course was designed with working nurses in mind, so you should expect to spend 6-8 hours per week on your coursework. Weekly due dates for assignments will be clearly explained in each module, but you will not be required to attend any class at a specific time. Beyond assignment due dates, your timed open book final exam will be open over a specific period of time (i.e. 72 hours), during which you may retake the test if you do not pass it the first time.

Not yet. Once a functional medicine nursing specialty certification is established, we will ensure our program fits the criteria to take the specialty certification exam.

This course is open to registered nurses and advanced practice nurses with a valid license (e.g., RN, APRN) from your state/ country of practice.

• This course is the only course that teaches functional medicine exclusively for registered nurses and advanced practice nurses.
• This course is comprehensive enough for graduates to incorporate intervention into current practice, without the time commitment and cost of a 2+ year program.
• This course uniquely complements nurse coaching modalities; knowledge gained and interventions learned will expand your nursing and nurse coaching skillset.
• This course will include extensive real-life case studies to exemplify real-life scenarios where the assessment tools and clinical interventions impacted patient outcomes.
• This course is lead by an experienced functional medicine nurse practitioner who actually uses what she is teaching in her own practice.

This program will give you a working understanding of functional medicine principles, and how to apply them within a nursing framework.  Functional medicine interventions are equally nursing interventions.  The most powerful methods used in functional medicine are fully within the scope of an RN, and can be applied in their current work setting.  For advanced practice nurses (APNs), there is the added scope of prescriptive authority, but a large percentage of functional medicine practitioners (including nurses) use no prescriptive therapies. 

Additionally, some providers choose to provide safe, effective care with no lab data (or they have patients bring them recent labs for review).  We will explore methods for RNs and APNs to heal and promote wellness using powerful methodologies in a safe, effective manner in a broad spectrum of settings and with a variety of resources at their disposal.

The program includes content on clinical implementation of skills.  We will explore case studies throughout the program to help solidify your learning and practice applying your new knowledge. The main goal of this course is to prepare you to apply healing functional medicine practice in any healthcare setting.  Upon successful completion of the program, you may choose to call yourself a functional medicine nurse and work in the practice setting of your choice.

For some, this will be as a nurse coach/ consultant/ entrepreneur, for others this may be part of their bedside nursing or other clinical practice.  We will explore avenues for specializing in a specific niche of functional medicine that you are passionate about.

A valid registered nursing or advanced practice nursing license.  If you are an international nurse (non-US), you must have the equivalent to RN or APRN.

Classes will be conducted via pre-recorded training modules, reading assignments, asynchronous discussions, reflective journaling, case studies, quizzes, and a final exam (timed, open book). This allows you the greatest flexibility in learning the materials on your own schedule.

Your instructor (Brigitte Sager, MSN RN ARNP FNP-C NCMP NC-BC) will be available via email and Zoom office hours (video conferencing) to answer questions and otherwise assist you in mastering the evidence-based materials presented.