Dr Cristina Beer
MBBS (hons), FRACGP, BBioMedSci, ACNEM Member, AIMA member, Cert IV in Fitness (personal trainer)
President
Dr Cris is an integrative medical doctor, author, corporate speaker, and media doctor. As an expert in integrative medicine Dr. Cris specialises not just in treatment of illnesses, but in the attaining of optimum health. She has particular interests in preventative health, lifestyle medicine, hormone health, weight loss, fatigue and sleep problems, digestive issues, as well as women’s health. She currently practices at The Medical Sanctuary as a registered medical doctor helping real patients with real health issues everyday.
She was also the health consultant for The Biggest Loser retreat. Dr Cris has worked closely alongside Griffith University’s School of Nutrition & Dietetics by being involved in joint research projects focusing on improving nutrition knowledge and delivery of general practitioners for chronic diseases.
Dr Cris’ passion for health and wellness extends beyond the consulting room also. She is an author of the books Healthy Habits, 52 ways to better health, and Healthy Liver; with her third book Healthy Hormones being released in late 2017. She regularly contributes to body+soul as part of their expert team as well as The Daily Telegraph and other print and online publications. She has appeared on Studio 10, The Daily Edition, and SBS Insight.
Dr Bentley Logan
MBBS
Vice-President
Dr Bentley is a medical doctor, public speaker and patient health advocate who seeks to expand the standardisation of integrative medicine within Australia and New Zealand for general practice.
Medical professional standards can assist both patients and medical practitioners to support best practice upon the guiding principle of informed decision.
Dr Bentley Logan grew up in Townsville, North Queensland. He graduated from James Cook University and completed his residency at Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane. He undertook further studies working within the specialties of ophthalmology, medical administration, emergency medicine and is currently training within general practice.
Dr Bentley is active in promoting the wellbeing of future doctors in training.
Dr Bentley has interests in supporting preventative health care, the utilisation of available healthcare systems, and promoting patient autonomy.
Dr Leila Masson
M.D. MPH FRACP FACNEM IBCLC
Secretary
Leila is an integrative paediatrician who combines allopathic medicine with a nutritional and environmental approach to children’s health issues. She ran a busy clinic in Auckland, New Zealand, before moving to Sydney. She received her medical doctorate from the Free University of Berlin and did her paediatric specialist training at the University of California in San Francisco. She received her Master in Public Health from Harvard University and her Diploma in Tropical Medicine from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Leila has worked in the US, Europe, New Zealand, and volunteered for 2 years setting up a rural clinic in Pakistan.
Dr Masson lectures internationally on the subject of children’s nutrition and an integrative medicine approach to paediatric issues, including autism spectrum disorders, ADHD, allergies, recurrent infections, and autoimmune diseases. She speaks English, German, French and Spanish.
She is the author of “Children’s Health A-Z” a parent’s guide to natural therapies for common childhood ailments.
Linda Funnell-Milner
Treasurer
Linda holds degrees in Law and Education, an Adv. Dip in Nutritional Medicine and certificates in Clinical Hypnotherapy, NLP and Health Coaching. In 2018 Linda became one of the first few Health Coaches in Australia to become a Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach with the NB HWC in the USA.
Linda currently is a consulting Nutritionist, Health Coach and Clinical Hypnotherapist at the Terrey Hills Family Surgery. For 12 years she was the owner and a director of a multimodal Complementary Health Clinic on the Northern Beaches of Sydney.
In conjunction with many of health coaching’s leading thinkers and educators in Australia and New Zealand, Linda founded and is the President of Health Coaches Aus NZ Association (HC ANZA). This group is committed to advocacy and embedding professional standards for Health and Wellness Coaches in Australia and New Zealand as an important part of the Collaborative Care model of whole patient care in clinical and private practices.
Corporate Experience – Prior to working as a health practitioner, Linda had 19 years managerial and Senior Executive experience (nationally and internationally) with 3 of Australia’s top ten corporations as an in-house legal adviser developing strategic policy in the risk management of global issues such as Environmental Impacts, Climate Change, Human Rights. Her work included extensive experience in building stakeholder relations programs with governments, NGO’s and consumers. Linda was a registered political lobbyist with the Federal governments during this time.
During her time in corporate Australia, Linda had international program experience as the Australian business representative on collaborations with United Nations Environment Program for Financial Institutions and the Global Reporting Initiative located in Amsterdam, including six years as the Chair of the GRI Stakeholder Council.
From 2007 – 2013 Linda was a Non-Executive Director and held committee Chair positions on Finance, Audit, Risk and Governance on not-for-profit Boards for Uniting Care NSW & Act and World Wildlife Fund Australia (WWF).
Dr Ellen Barron
Board Member
Ellen is the Founding Director of Ruby Cha Cha a boutique market research agency that specialises in brand strategy and consumer research across industries. She has worked with pharma companies, biotechs and medical foundations such as the Westmead Institute for Medical Research, helping them to create a vision, purpose and brand strategy. Ellen is a strong advocate for improving the connection between consumer needs and business aspirations, specifically in healthcare research where she has worked across a broad range of therapy areas creating consumer, patient and practitioner segmentations, pathways and strategies for growth. She holds a first class honours in Psychology, studied a PhD on the nexus of alcohol and gambling behaviour, where she developed a scale of gambling control. She has also completed a postgraduate diploma in Strategic Marketing through MGSM. She is currently on the board of The Research Society in Australia, where she is the Treasurer, and has just completed a revitalisation of the TRS Fellows program. She has completed AICD training and refresher programs, is a member of Women on Boards and the Consumer Health Forum. Ellen is also a highly valued mentor in the Research Society Mentoring Program and supports a number of charities supporting women and homelessness. She is a firm advocate for wellbeing and spends her spare time enjoying Japanese yoga, pilates, hiking and cooking.
Susan Arentz
PhD
Board Member
Susan is a naturopath with over 20 years’ experience in women’s health. She is an Adjunct Research Fellow at NICM Health Research Institute at Western Sydney University and is the Editor of the Australian Journal of Herbal and Naturopathic Medicine, the scientific journal of the Naturopaths and Herbalists Association of Australia.
As Head of Naturopathy at Endeavour College of Natural Health, Susan was responsible for embedding key elements into the degree program to strengthen links between evidence and clinical practice, and for increased self-reflection opportunities enabling graduate outcomes of holistic person-centred care, crucial for benchmarking the equivalence of the degree to international naturopathic qualifications. She has extensive educational expertise and experience as a lecturer and clinical supervisor and knowledge of adult education theory and practice.
Dr Arentz’s PhD and early research focussed on the clinical role of naturopathy in pre-conception healthcare, infertility and polycystic ovary syndrome. More recently she has collaborated with Australian and international experts and helped embed integrative clinical recommendations into clinical practice guidelines. As an editor, she established a mentor framework and facilitated networks of students, researchers, practitioners and educators to help foster the growth of integrative healthcare. As a member of the AIMA board, Dr Arentz will continue to lead and facilitate the development of integrative medicine as being core to the health and wellbeing of individuals and society as a whole.
Dr Kate Armstrong
Board Member
Kate began her medical training at the Auckland Medical School where she won the Douglas Pharmaceutical Prize in Clinical Communication Skills and the Royal NZ College of General Practitioners Prize for General Practice. She then completed her Diploma’s in Paediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynaecology, preparing herself for isolated rural General Practice via locums throughout Northland, Coromandel and Great Barrier Island in search of a model of care that suited her aspirations.
Aotea Health on Great Barrier Island inspired her, and four years later, she began a remote rural General Practice in Colville, Coromandel based on the Great Barrier Island Community Trust model. In November 2003 The Colville Community Health Centre (a remote rural Integrated General Practice) opened at the Northern tip of the Coromandel Peninsula. It provides for 700 permanent patients, many transient visitors and in the summer up to 10,000 holiday makers. The success of this small local service is the provision of Infrastructure via community fund raising by The Colville Community Health Trust. Without community support this service would not exist.
She became a member of Australasian College of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine (ACNEM) in 2006. In 2007 a local St John First Response Unit was started in Colville and Dr Kate became a St John Doctor. She completed her ACNEM fellowship in 2010. The Colville First Response Unit in November 2017 celebrated 10 years of 24/7 emergency service to the Northern Coromandel area. She is also a rural GP representative for the St John Clinical Governance Committee and is actively involved in training Waikato based medical students as an honorary lecturer for the University of Auckland Medical School.
Since then The Colville Project has evolved through collaboration between The Colville Community Health Trust and The Colville Social Service Collective Charitable Trust. They plan to meet the needs of their community into the future by building an Inspirational Wellbeing and Education Village.
Dr Kate has a special interest in motivation and behavioural change, lifestyle medicine and maximizing your genetic potential through food.