Dr. Jenn Simmons was our guest this week and it was a great conversation about how Dr. Jenn went from having a deep desire to help women with Breast Cancer as a breast surgeon, to helping women address Breast Cancer from a Functional Medicine point of view. She truly has a passion for helping women, and was inspired from a very personal story. Take a listen and enjoy this wonderful conversation!
Also, don’t forget to register for Dr. Jenn’s brand new Beyond the Cancer Summit (it’s free!) and is happening now!
Beyond the Cancer with Dr. Jenn Simmons
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About Dr. Jenn Simmons
Stay tuned for Episode 31 (you can see all episodes on the Conners Clinic Live page!)
Listen to or Watch the Full Podcast Episode
Transcript
Dr. Kevin Conners
Hello, everybody. This is Dr. Kevin Conners. Welcome to another episode of Conners Clinic Live. I have a very special guest that I met not all that long ago when she interviewed me for her summit. This is Dr. Jenn Simmons. She is a medical doctor. She graduated from medical school in Pennsylvania, right?
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Jefferson.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Jefferson Medical School in Pennsylvania. She specializes in integrative and functional medicine. She has a lot of course work done through the Institute of Functional Medicine, very active wi them. And you specialize in breast cancer really, don’t you?
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Yeah, I do.
Dr. Kevin Conners
You have a lot of specialties in cardio and hormone and immune and a whole bunch of different things. So let’s talk about you.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Thank you. Once you train in functional medicine, you kind of learn that you can help everyone, but my real calling is to the breast cancer community, and it’s a very personal story. So when I was a child, my hero was my first cousin. She was a woman named Linda Creed. She was a singersongwriter in the 1970s and 1980s. She wrote all the music for The Spinners and the Stylistics.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Oh, my goodness.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Yeah. I love it when people know what I’m talking about, but then it also means that you’re old.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Yeah, I’ll take that as a compliment.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Yeah. I meant it as one because I also know what I’m talking about. So her most famous song that she ever wrote was “The Greatest Love of All.” So she wrote that song in 1977 as the title track to the movie The Greatest starring Mohammed Ali.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Yeah. I love it.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
It really received its most acclaim when Whitney Houston rereleased it in March of 1986. And at that time, it would spend 14 weeks at the top of the charts. But Linda would never know because she died of metastatic breast cancer just one month after Whitney released the song.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Oh, goodness.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
I was 16 years old at the time.
Dr. Kevin Conners
This is your first cousin, you say?
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Yes, my first cousin, and I lost my hero.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Oh, goodness. So that made a big impact at 16 years old.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
A huge impact. I was just coming into being a woman, trying to figure out what I was going to do and what contribution that I was going to make to this earth. And my hero, my cousin, who is literally a rock star, you know, people use that term figuratively, buy my cousin was literally a rock star. I grew up idolizing her, and she was gone. She was 36 years old, and she was gone.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Wow.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
And so that her life would have meaning beyond the music, I dedicated my life to helping people to not have to have that reality, to not lose their life and loved ones to breast cancer. So I did the only thing I knew how to do. I became a doctor, and I became a breast cancer surgeon. And I was the first fellowship trained breast cancer surgeon in Philadelphia. And I really thought that I had it figured out, and I was making a contribution, right? And I think I was. I mean, I really think that I made a huge contribution to that space. But then in 2016, I got sick myself. And it was at that time that I learned about functional medicine.
Dr. Kevin Conners
So how many years were you a breast surgeon?
Dr. Jenn Simmons
I practiced breast surgery for 17 years.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Okay.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Yeah. And in my 15th year of practice is when I got sick. It’s when I got diagnosed with Grave’s disease. And I was sitting there in the office with my friend and my colleague and my doctor, and he was telling me that I needed to have surgery and I needed to take radioactive iodine and have lifelong hormone replacement. And there was just something that just felt so wrong to me. I was kind of hit by this feeling that, why would God give me an organ only for me to remove it and then have to spend the rest of my life replacing it? It just didn’t make any sense. And so I refused treatment. And this was the start of people thinking that I lost my mind. And I went on a quest, selfishly, to heal myself, right? My health quest wasn’t about making my breast cancer patients lives better, because I didn’t know. I didn’t know they could be better. I didn’t know how much power that they had. And it was only through learning about functional medicine that I discovered that health doesn’t happen in a doctor’s office. And no matter how good a surgeon you are or how good a doctor you are, that’s not where health comes from. Health comes from the patient building their healthy life. And there are ways that physicians can enhance their health journey. But most of the health journey comes from the patient, and it comes from doing the things that we know as functional providers build health.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Do you see, in your travels through functional medicine, so many practitioners have somewhat similar stories? They got sick themselves or a family member got sick, and they couldn’t help them with the level of understanding of functional physiology that they had, and they had to figure out something else. And it wasn’t just a pill, some pharmaceutical missing in that person’s life to bring them back to health. And they had to start digging themselves.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Yeah. I think everyone comes to this functional space through a very personal story. It’s either their experience or their child’s experience or their parents experience, but some situation in which traditional medicine really fell short. And that’s because our traditional medical system is geared towards symptom management, and it’s not geared towards problem resolution. And that’s very intentional. Unfortunately, it’s very intentional because the way that doctors are paid is by seeing people who are sick and if they’re well and not in the doctor’s office, a doctor can’t earn a living. And I don’t mean to say that physicians want people to be sick, because of course they don’t. Of course they don’t. They all go into medicine with the best of intentions, but the problem is that they have to operate, no pun intended, within a system that only rewards for sick care.
Dr. Kevin Conners
And it very limits what they could do with those sick people, too. So even if you as a physician, let’s say you stated your health organization that you were employed in prior to your revelation of functional medicine and you were learning functional medicine, would you be able to practice functional medicine within that system?
Dr. Jenn Simmons
No, absolutely not. Because there are standards of care. For instance, if someone comes in with a blood pressure over a certain number, a threshold number, you are obligated to offer them an anti hypertensive. You’re obligated. That’s the standard of care. So you having a conversation with them about cutting out processed foods, moving their body, and sleeping at night is not relevant, or you looking for heavy metals because this hypertension started acutely. Right. So that’s not what we are allowed or entitled to do within the confines of the traditional medical system. And it’s sad. And the other thing is that the education is provided for by the pharmaceutical companies, by the device companies. They are what is gearing education. And so there’s really no opportunity for people to think outside of the traditional model because it’s hard to see something that you don’t know exists.
Dr. Kevin Conners
So many new medical practitioners are basically just technicians of the pharmaceutical industry.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
They are. And they are not doing it begrudgingly or with any ill intent. They are walking through the system that they have been taught that they believe in, because we were taught to believe in it and trust it, right?
Dr. Kevin Conners
Your experience that you thought, okay, well, I got to look at a different way here. That’s when you started going down the functional medicine pathway. How did you heal yourself?
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Well, it took three years, so I don’t want to make any pretense that it happened overnight, but it was figuring out what I was doing that was hurting me, that wasn’t supporting me or promoting my health. I thought that I knew a lot about nutrition because I wasn’t overweight, right? And I think a lot of people suffer under this delusion. And so because I was able to, despite the fact that I come from an overweight family, because I was able to eat in a disordered way, that I didn’t gain weight, I thought that I knew about nutrition. So I had a lot to learn. I had a lot to learn about stress management, how I eat, move, think, and relate to the world.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Well, you changed your whole life through this. You changed your practice. You walked away from that system. Now you have a practice that mainly focuses on helping women with breast cancer. Explain that.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Yeah. So when I was a surgeon, the only person’s life that I really impacted was the person that I was working with. Right. Because it’s a very one on one thing, and as a surgeon, you don’t even really reach beyond that person. And so I knew once I learned about functional medicine, I knew I wanted to make a bigger impact. And so what I do is I help people at any point along the breast cancer spectrum, whether you were worried, you fear about developing breast cancer, you have a BRKA mutation, you’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer, you’re in treatment, you’ve been through treatment, and you’re wondering now what? Or you’re living with metastatic disease. I help anyone along that spectrum to reclaim their health. And my patients enjoy the best health of their lives after their breast cancer diagnosis because they finally learn what it means to be healthy.
Dr. Kevin Conners
You really work on changing a person’s lifestyle, is that right?
Dr. Jenn Simmons
I do. And when you do that, you change the lifestyle of their family, their community, the people that they touch. So it has a tremendous impact. When you teach people how to be healthy the ripple effect is tremendous.
Dr. Kevin Conners
So you could be preventing a lot of disease, not just cancers, in these people’s families and further family structures just by touching one person. That’s the greater impact that you’re talking about, right?
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Yes. And what functional practitioners know that is not really well described or understood in the traditional medical model is that at the root of almost every chronic disease that we know of is inflammation. Now, what causes inflammation in my body might be different than what causes inflammation in your body and vice versa. But that, to be aware of the fact that inflammation is the root cause for most people, and it is just a question of how you’re going to manifest it. So I manifested my inflammation as autoimmune disease. Now, I happen to come from a family that has a spectrum of disease that looks like autoimmune disease ten years later, breast cancer or colon cancer. I mean, that’s what our family progression looks like. And other people have different family progressions. Maybe they don’t have the autoimmune stop over. But when you decrease inflammation for people, you stop cancer, you stop high blood pressure, you stop diabetes, you stop heart disease, you stop any number of these diseases that we have come to accept as normal results of aging, right? And they’re not normal. It’s just that in the traditional medical model, they don’t know how to deal with them, so they normalize them.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Sure.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Oh, it’s normal to feel badly as you get older. Oh, it’s normal to be tired. Everyone gains weight as they get older. These are things that are told to us repeatedly and we buy them. We believe them.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Well, we’re normalizing so many things these days. Normalizing obesity, normalizing ill health in every way. It’s supposed to be something we’re supposed to accept as the new normal. There’s a lot of talk about prevention. I mean, medicine talks about prevention. I don’t think they know what that word means.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
They definitely don’t.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Kind of talk me through that, how you would deal with somebody when you’re talking about trying to prevent disease, cancer, sort of inflammatory process.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Because that’s the goal, right? So we want to get to these people before the disease develops. And so for a lot of people, prevention is just around living an anti inflammatory life. So many of us are too busy, too scheduled, not sleeping, not moving in a way that’s productive for our bodies. We are riddled with stress without tools and coping mechanisms as to how to deal with that. And we’re eating a diet that is not health promoting. And so you can really move the needle for a lot of people when you teach them to eat in a way that drives health and move in a way that drives health, think in a way that drives health, sleep in a way that drives health, avoiding environmental toxins, and you’ll never avoid all of them. But that we can all do a much better job by just paring down on what we do and the touch points that we have throughout our day. So there is so much health that can happen that is in 100% control of the individual. Sorry to hear my dog my dog snoring.
Dr. Kevin Conners
No, I don’t. I can’t. Do you think people are afraid of that when they they hear about prevention? Oh, gosh, I don’t want to do this drastic lifestyle change. Is there a fear in a lot of people’s minds?
Dr. Jenn Simmons
I think the fear is twofold. First of all, I think that they think that it’s too hard. It’s too hard to eat healthy and too hard to commit to that healthy lifestyle. I think the other thing is that some people are afraid to take ownership of their health. I was giving a talk on sleep one time to a room full of women with metastatic breast cancer, and I was explaining to them that there are thousands of stories of people who have reversed their disease or living with their disease for 30 and 40 years. And this one woman put her hand up and she said to me, “you know, it’s just easier for me to blame the medicine for not working than to blame myself.” And I think that resonates with a lot of people. They don’t want to feel badly about the fact that thinking that they caused their cancer and they don’t want to be responsible for having to reverse it. So if the drugs don’t work, that’s the drug’s failure, not theirs. Now, of course, I don’t think blame or shame helps anyone, right? So thinking that you caused your breast cancer is not a productive thought and certainly no one causes their cancer intentionally. I mean, find me the smoker that lights up the cigarette with this thought that they are intending to get lung cancer. Right? Like no one, no matter what activity you’re participating in, no one intends to get cancer. It just doesn’t exist. Right? So you have to take that blame and shame away and off the table. And then you kind of have to think about like, alright, well, if you’re going to give all your power away to a system that doesn’t work, then I think that’s really sad.
Dr. Kevin Conners
I tell people often that they have to take that power back. It’s easier from an emotional standpoint to put the responsibility on the oncologist when you get the cancer diagnosis. And then I don’t have to worry about it, I don’t have to think about it. It’s all in his hands or her hands. And they’re going to just fix me. And if they don’t, then it’s their fault. That’s easier because they’re afraid of that responsibility. But people have to take that responsibility. They have to take that because they’re giving away their power.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Yeah, I agree.
Dr. Kevin Conners
They have to take that back.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
And they’re giving away their power to something that doesn’t work.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Yeah. That’s even worse.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Yeah. So, you know, they kind of get told from the start, like, we all know where this road goes, so who wants to come on that journey? I certainly wouldn’t want to come on that journey. And so I think it is the responsibility of people like you and I to shout that there’s an alternative from the rooftops. Now, if people are not up for that and they don’t want to take ownership of their health and they don’t want to participate then okay. That’s what the traditional medical model is for. But it’s hard for me to believe that most people, when really faced with their mortality, wouldn’t say like, alright, I’m going to do it. I’m going to do whatever it takes to get my health back.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Yeah. It’s hard for me to understand why people wouldn’t do that either. But you and I both are kidding ourselves to think that everybody does because most people don’t. Right?
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Most people don’t. But that’s how we decide who we work with and who we don’t. Right?
Dr. Kevin Conners
That’s exactly right.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Because I know I can’t pull people up hill. I can push them from behind, but I can’t pull them up hill. Right? And I’m sure that you have the same thing. Like, you’re not going to waste your time convincing someone to help themselves. Like they have to be full on convinced that they can and will help themselves and then absolutely you’ll help them.
Dr. Kevin Conners
They have to be willing to make those lifestyle changes even if they are in incremental steps, that’s okay. But we have to be walking in the right direction.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Yes. So if you start in Pennsylvania and you want to go to Florida, no matter how fast you drive north, you’re never getting to Florida, right? So it’s that thing, but you can drive really slowly and head due south, you’ll get there, right? And so it’s the same thing. Like you don’t have to change everything in a day. Change one thing and let that stick, then change something else. We know that these positive behaviors only lead to more positive behaviors. Like we know what it gets like. And so I think it’s hard to judge from day to day or week to week, but when you look at these people on day one and then you look at them again six months later, and then again six months later after that, they’re barely recognizable. They’re 30 pounds lighter, they sleep at night, they have energy out the wazoo, they are happy, they love their life, they are connected, they’re dialed in. These are things that can happen over a year. And life comes with purpose driven living.
Dr. Kevin Conners
And that’s what keeps us doing what we’re doing, right?
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Dr. Kevin Conners
What’s the most gratifying thing in your practice would you say?
Dr. Jenn Simmons
I just love it. When I finished working with someone over the course of a year and they come to me and they say, what can I do? Who can I help? Like I want to pay it back and I want to do what you’re doing, I want to come work for you. I know that I have made a tremendous impact on that person. And then that same person, if they go and become a health coach, they’re going to impact thousands of people. And you know, my goal is to help 2 million women through this diagnosis. That’s my goal. It’s a lofty goal, but I think I can do it.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Are you there?
Dr. Jenn Simmons
I think I can do it.
Dr. Kevin Conners
You’re there yet?
Dr. Jenn Simmons
I’m not there yet, but I’m going to get there.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Well, it’s been a pleasure talking to you. I want to have some more conversations. Are you open to some more conversations on our next podcast?
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Absolutely, absolutely. Love to.
Dr. Kevin Conners
I just love your charisma and your energy. And most of all, you’re just your hunger to help people. Because that’s what I hear from patients the number one thing that’s missing, they don’t feel like they found a doctor that really cares and cares about them individually. And that’s really big key to healing, you know it is.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
And you have to do a lot of listening. I don’t have to tell you that. You have to do a lot of listening because most people who get a cancer diagnosis, that’s their body trying to tell them something. There’s a message there. And it often takes us to be quiet, the providers to be quiet for that message to come through for people.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Yeah, and that’s a lesson for the patient too. To be quiet and be still and know that God has an answer for them. And sometimes they can only find it in that stillness.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Without question. And I think that your point is well made, that God understands and has intentions around what happens with people. And when people get these big wake up calls, they need to start to listen and hear what their body is trying to tell them.
Dr. Kevin Conners
Yeah, that’s exactly right. Well, that’s a good place to end today and we’ll continue on next time. Thank you, Dr. Jenn. We’ll have information on this video on where to find you and to be able to get in touch with you and find your practice and communicate. What a blessing to have you. Thank you.
Dr. Jenn Simmons
Thank you. Bye for now.
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Dustin has been passionate about holistic health since he met his wife, Dr Mallory Ranem (Conners) 20 years ago. As the Digital Media Manager, he coordinates content across Conners Clinic’s large online presence, including written, video, and audio.
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