Hi, I’m Dr. Zeke Watts.
Ever since I was a kid, I knew that I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to help people as most doctors do, but more than that I wanted to work in a way where I got to affect long lasting and meaningful changes in people’s lives and really get to know them and built relationships over time. As I grew older and learned more about the medical system, I realized that the conventional model is not for me. While it provides tremendous value for billions of people in the world, the basic model of giving a medicine to manage the symptoms of a problem, rather than getting to the root cause of it always seemed to lack the deeper understanding of what makes a person truly healthy.
For my undergraduate training I attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville where I graduated magna cum laude with a major in Health and Wellness Promotion and special departmental distinction in my field. I was trying to get clearer idea not only of what complete Wellness really means, but also to gain tools to help people reach it.
After that, I had to decide if I wanted to become a Doctor of Medicine, or pursue a different path. I was keenly aware of the holes and flaws in the conventional medical model, and that many people end up falling through the cracks. Sure, you might have an effective treatment that helps 80% of people with a certain problem, and that is great, but I always wondered, “what about that other 20%? Who is looking out for them?” I set out to find a profession that let me help people that fall through the cracks. That search led me to become a chiropractor and work in the field of nonsurgical musculoskeletal medicine, which is poorly addressed by the conventional medical system.
For my doctorate degree, I went to D’Youville University In Buffalo, NY because it was the only multidisciplinary chiropractic school in the United states at the time, and I figured that if I could learn from the experts in multiple professions, I would be a more well-rounded doctor and be able to more effectively work with other health professions to get my patients the best care. I also got to work with very complex cases in a trauma hospital, and a neurosurgery clinic as part of my training, which prepared me to handle complex, difficult cases.
I love being a chiropractor, as it allows me to help people with the kinds of issues that conventional medicine just does not have many tools to address. It also allows me to get to know my patients and talk to them and watch them get better firsthand. I learned very quickly that most of being a good doctor is finding the right diagnosis and understanding all the nuances in a person’s situation so that you can address them quickly and efficiently. I love working out the puzzle of what is going wrong with someone and then working with them to address the issue and watch them get their quality of life back. It is my absolute favorite thing about being a doctor and a large part of what drives me as a human being. Because of this, I quickly developed a reputation as the person to go to if you have a weird condition that no one else can figure out, and for a long time that provided me with a constant supply of new puzzles, and I was happy.
While I still love practicing as a chiropractor, helping people, and figuring out the puzzle of what is wrong, chiropractic medicine really only deals with structural issues involving joints, muscles, and nerves (the neuromusculoskeletal system) and the diagnosis of chiropractic issues alone was no longer sufficiently challenging to me. I also continued to have many patients with non-structural issues, and for a long time I did not have any tools in my toolbox to help them. I needed a new puzzle, and I wanted it to be one that still allowed me to help people in the same way, but with more issues.
I had a friend who had recently started practicing functional medicine, and showed me some of what he was doing and the results he was getting with complicated inflammatory disorders that are otherwise very hard to treat. That set me on the path of functional medicine and I started taking courses. Very quickly, I was hooked. Functional Medicine allows me to help with a much wider variety of problems, and the puzzles are dramatically more complex and satisfying to unravel. Best of all, I get to help people with complex issues get their quality of life and independence back.
I have now completed extensive training from several of the best functional medicine programs in the world, including the Kharrazian Institute, and Functional Medicine University, courses from the Kalish Institute, and Rebel Health Tribe. I am currently working toward a post-graduate nutritional diplomate and taking ongoing trainings through Rupa Health, the Institute for Functional Medicine, and FXMed.
I am always hungry to learn more information and master more aspects of my craft so that I can more efficiently help my patients live healthy lives.
I hope that I can meet you where you are, and that I happen to have the skills and knowledge to help you get where you want to be. I look forward to working with you, or if I am not the right person to help you reach your goals, I will try to help you find that person.
