Welcome to another 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 five key takeaways on how lifestyle medicine is helping clinicians and leaders reimagine the future of healthcare. This episode, “The Courage to Pivot: From Sick Care to Lifestyle Medicine,” features Dr. Alicia Craig Rodriguez, a board-certified family nurse practitioner, educator, and leader in integrative health innovation at Florida State University’s College of Nursing. With a career spanning bedside nursing, pharmaceutical drug development, executive leadership, and academic innovation, Dr. Alicia shares the deeply personal and professional journey that led her to rethink how healthcare should be practiced. The conversation explores what it means to step outside your comfort zone in pursuit of meaningful change. After years leading the development of life-saving medications, Dr. Alicia realized that treating chronic disease required more than prescriptions alone. She discusses why she pivoted back to direct patient care, how lifestyle medicine reshaped her understanding of prevention and healing, and why clinicians must move beyond the traditional “expert model” toward coaching and empowering patients. You’ll also hear how Dr. Alicia pioneered the nation’s first full academic pathway to lifestyle medicine certification for nurse practitioners, the resistance she encountered along the way, and how evidence, innovation, and persistence helped transform skepticism into momentum. From redesigning healthcare education to creating clinical environments that support disease reversal and whole-person care, this episode offers an inspiring look at what’s possible when clinicians are willing to challenge the status quo. If you’re interested in lifestyle medicine, nursing leadership, chronic disease prevention, healthcare innovation, or transforming the future workforce of healthcare, this is an episode you won’t want to miss. Subscribe to ACLM on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsjJsNjWtUf30LiofumGRfQ Learn more about ACLM's Academic Pathways: https://lifestylemedicine.org/academic-integration/health-profession-schools/ Learn more about ACLM's LEADR program: https://lifestylemedicine.org/about-aclm/research-innovation/leadr-sma/ 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. Connect with ACLM Online! Visit lifestylemedicine.org: https://lifestylemedicine.org/ Find ACLM on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifestylemed/ Find ACLM on X: https://x.com/ACLifeMed Find ACLM on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aclifemed/?hl=en Find ACLM on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-college-of-lifestyle-medicine/
