Lifestyle Medicine

In 2008, Dr. Frates met with a group of students at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and came up with the concept of a Lifestyle Medicine Interest Group (LMIG). Dr. Frates is the faculty advisor for the group and has been since its inception. Each year Presidents or Co-Presidents help lead the group and set up lectures with space, appropriate time, and healthy food. Dr. Frates teaches some lectures and invites colleagues to share their expertise in exercise, nutrition, sleep, stress resiliency, motivational interviewing, behavior change, and other areas in Lifestyle Medicine. This HMS group is the template for LMIGs nationally and internationally. Dr. Frates works closely with the  American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) to support the growth and establishments of these groups.

Dr. Frates works with the Professionals In Training Committee (PiT) at ACLM to formalize LMIG creation process for other faculty and students bring Lifestyle Medicine material into medical education.

Dr. Frates has served on the Education Committee at ACLM since 2016. As Co-Chair of the Pre-Professional Lifestyle Medicine Education Committee, she worked to develop and integrate evidence-based Lifestyle Medicine curriculum into pre-professional health education (2018). As a member of the Medical School Education Committee, Dr. Frates helped create a national curriculum in Lifestyle Medicine for medical schools (2018).

Dr. Frates created the first and only syllabus for a full semester course on Lifestyle Medicine basic principles (2017). This document is available online at ACLM's website and has been downloaded over 2,000 times in 48 countries.

Dr. Frates crafted the first package course offered on Lifestyle Medicine through ACLM a with syllabus, handbook, and PowerPoints. This course includes 12 PowerPoints (120-200 slides each) on topics of Lifestyle Medicine mirroring the Lifestyle Medicine Handbook including exercise, nutrition, stress resiliency, sleep, social connection, coaching, substance use disorders, meditation, mindfulness-based stress reduction, and positive psychology (2018).

Dr. Frates is one of four national and international board item writers for the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine, the first certifying body for Lifestyle Medicine (2017). This exam is given nationally and internationally. Dr. Frates wrote ¼ of the questions.

Dr. Frates mentored a Harvard College senior to create a 12-week elective course for middle school students on wellbeing using Lifestyle Medicine principles. This course adopted the PAVING the Path to Wellness Program to middle school students (2018). This elective experience was presented nationally at ACLM in the form of a poster in October 2019. The course is being used as a template to create a national middle school curriculum in collaboration with the ACLM.

Dr. Frates participated as faculty for the Lifestyle Medicine Residency Curriculum for ACLM by editing two modules and creating quiz questions.

Dr. Frates is a faculty member for the ACLM Well-Being Course. She created module two on the Six Pillars of Lifestyle Medicine using the PAVING the Path to Wellness Program to help healthcare providers prioritize their own self-care in these areas. The program includes a PowerPoint and recorded 1.5 hour lecture.

When her father passed away at 79, Dr. Frates and her family created the Donald A. Pegg Award in collaboration with Sami Bég, MD, the Founding Chair of ACLM's Awards Committee. The award aims to bring in the crucial information about exercise, nutrition, sleep, stress resiliency, social connections, and substance use into curriculum at any school in an easy and effective way without being part of the core curriculum. The award empowers students and faculty members to create and sustain Lifestyle Medicine interest groups, funds students to start LMIGs in their medical schools, and provides a stipend for them to travel to the annual ACLM Meeting.

Dr. Frates consulted with the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Department of Surgery to craft a unique wellness initiative for their Frigelleto Grant to bring joy back to medicine. She organized three different offerings including a series of 12 videos on Lifestyle Medicine principles for practice and personal use, Mindfulness for Surgeons in conjunction with Darshan Mehta at Benson Henry Institute, and leadership-life-health coaching for surgeons. The program won the best wellness program of all the departments involved at MGH (2018-2019). It was replicated for the Anesthesia Department and Dermatology Departments (2019-2020). Dr. Frates continues to work with the MGH Department of Surgery to craft a second edition of the program. 

Dr. Frates was hired to coach physicians at Mass General Hospital for a three-session intervention to help with lifestyle and leadership.

Dr. Frates helped the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland (RCSI) to develop a Lifestyle Medicine program for implementing Lifestyle Medicine principles and cases into their medical curriculum. She spent three days in Dublin brainstorming, lecturing, and meeting. Dr. Frates continues to guide and consult the RCSI faculty via phone and virtual meetings (2018-Present).

During COVID 19 from April to June, Dr. Frates created a daily virtual Lifestyle Medicine event for Mass General Physicians on the frontlines and those working from home. Monday=Meditation, Tuesday=Nutrition, Wednesday=Exercise, Thursday=Poetry for Physicians, Friday=Social Connection+Gratitudes. The program was adopted by the Center for Physician Well-Being at Mass General Hospital and will continue in a truncated version.

Dr. Frates led a team to create a handbook out of the material taught in the Lifestyle Medicine Course at Harvard Extension School. The Lifestyle Medicine Handbook won multiple awards from BookAuthority including Top 20 Medical Textbooks published in 2018 and Top 100 (#44) Best Medical Books of All Time (2018).

Dr. Frates partnered with ACLM to create the first Lifestyle Medicine calendar with facts, images, and important dates (2019).