From Traditional Medicine to Longevity Medicine: The Dr. Ivan Rusilko Way

Introduction and Podcast Context 0:00

I think the biggest advice I can give anybody is you have to really portray what you are selling. That is the most important part. You cannot take weight loss advice from a fat physician. You're listening to the Lifestyle Medicine Podcast with Dr. Ivan Rusilko, brought to you by Access Lab, where we explore new perspectives at the forefront of personalized healthcare. Welcome to the Lifestyle Medicine Podcast. I'm Dr. Ivan Rosilko, and we're powered by Access Medical Labs. If your doctor's not checking your labs, they're not a doctor.

And today I am coming at you solo, because I got so inspired by our last podcast guest, I just felt like I had to kind of share my story and how I built my practice to what it is today. Again, just got interviewed with Justin Allen, phenomenal, elite NP again, EliteNP.com. He's fantastic. I'm taking nurse practitioners and kind of helping them build their practices and teach them how to grow and not only offer better service to his patients, but also better profitability to us like in my style. So he's talking my language.

And it actually got me thinking that maybe I can share my story because it kind basically hit home for me. So, you know, I was in medical school. I got accepted to medical School out of high school, kind of a fun little story truncated my my entire life in this aspect of where, wow, i'm in Medical School. Do I really want to be here? I didn't. But if I'm going to do medical, school i'll do it Frank Sinatra's way my way.

Career Origins and Medical School 1:29

Uh, so I came out I had one Mr. USA in 2008 and 10 while I Was in, Medical school kind, of figured out that back then there was no such thing as longevity. There was, no, such, thing, as anti aging or anything like that. Wellness, traditional medicine or heresy. And I thought heresy seemed a lot more practical and common sense than traditional medicine at the time. But I played the game. I went through the entire thing, I was accepted to a residency at UM's Jackson for PM&R, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and I think it's a fantastic residency to be in.

Just wasn't for me. During my time as Mr. USA I got to see all kinds of fun things. People of affluence, of wealth, fame. And they all had the exact same problems we did. You know, they couldn't fit in their pants. They had bad issues in bed. they just weren't happy. Y'all had a bad sleep, you name it. And I kind of figured that, let's make medicine fun. Let's made medicine sexy again. Because nobody was actually really doing it, so coming out, hair down to here, shaved at the time. I was like, I think I can develop a form of medicine that's not just formone and IV, but can incorporate everything in life.

Uh, so that's where I kind of got the idea. I came out. Um, I back out of my residency, did a rotate internship, got my one year, um, uh, license in the state of Florida, which allowed me to be basically an unrestricted free agent, if you will, Uh which was kind cool at that age at 26, you know, coming out and being like, oh, i'm a full fledged doctor. So it was really, really cool. And in that time, it's scary because when you back out of something as a residency, you get blacklisted. Thankfully, Dr.

Sherman at UM and Jackson, who was the head of the PMR department, kind of understood my vision, supported me through it, kinda gave me the aspect where you're like, hey, Good luck. I'm gonna write to the AMA, let them know that, okay, fine, he's doing this, but, you know, get mad at him, which was great. My entire rotating industry came down here, started up at the Four Seasons, the Miami Institute. Spent on their hormonal program. Went through, built their IV system out properly. Sexual health was a big one in medical fitness.

And while I was there, it was kind of unique to sit there and see, because the Institute was this really, really cool boutique surgery clinic inside the four seasons in Miami. At the time, this was like nip-tuck. So I'm sure everybody watching this knows what niptuck was. This was naptuck! So it was super cool to be a part of it. And through that whole process, I got to kind of learn very quickly, you know, that there's ways to sit there and offer care, or there is the correct way to offer longevity, lifestyle, energy, whatever you want to call this industry now.

So I kind of, you know, perfected my skills while I was there for about a year, year and a half. Then I exited, I went into an international concierge. So, treating families in Europe, Ukraine, things like that. As I further propagated, learned more, got certified in various aspects, pain medicine, aesthetics, all this other kind fun stuff.

Building a Longevity Practice 4:08

I came back. I took over the penthouse of the Delano Hotel in Miami Beach. If you know the delano, you're my kind of people. Back in the day, it was one of sexiest, coolest hotels you could possibly be at. Had some really, really unique experiences there. From there, I got coached. They took me to Argentina. Opened a clinic in Argentina and again, imagine going from the United States where what you do is considered heresy or what is this guy selling snake oil and now all of a sudden you are in a completely different country that's never even heard of any of this as a 20, I think it was eight at the time.

And you're set up in a five story surgical suite, beautiful area of La Recoleta. I mean, it's just awesome. So I got to build out a practice down there in foreign country in medicine or actually basically create medicine in Argentina that wasn't even there. That was really, really cool. But that also helped me kind of understand the business of medicine, the businesses of what longevity could be. Honestly, go with longevity, even though there's a million different things to call this industry. It was super, super unique because once you start to realize how, how the body works and, you know, I went to medical school to basically unlearn medicine.

So I learned everything through it and you come to learn very quickly. There's a formula and that's prescribed, prescribed prescribed cut, cut cut repeat. It's not medicine. That's that's a factory. Let's be straightforward with it. I do like the idea of prolongation of life, which is what traditional medicine is, but there's no prolong gation or I'm sorry, augmentation of the quality of Life. So basically, traditional Medicine goes for just make sure your patient doesn't die and live longer, Some people like that.

I'd rather have an amazing 50 years as opposed to a horrible 100 years. But the nice thing about the industry that is now a wellness, you get to have amazing 100 year. So it's the augmentation of life, which is what I came to the realization at the, I think it was about 30 now, that I this is the what the industries should be. And it is kind of unique to sit there and see the industrial grow up around me. You know, I was speaking at the A4M. I still think I'm the youngest, youngest lecturer ever there.

When I started speaking to the a4m, my first talk was the seven different ways to make a woman smile. The seven physiological orgasms that women can have. Talk on that because I also have some erotic novels out, but at same time, it was unique because sexual health had just become popular. E.L. James came out. Now, women were more excited about sexual help. Men have always been excited. obviously. So it was definitely kind of cool to sit there and be kind on the forefront of that. This is where things like oxytocin therapies and the PT-141 and all that stuff, which still wasn't known by anyone.

But if you knew or if your student of life, I always try to be on about three years ahead of the curve, thankfully I've been my entire time in this industry. You start doing that, you start offering different modalities, and you actually sit and see an entire industry grow out of it. And you know, 2010, none of this really existed. And by 2020, it is a juggernaut. I mean, the wellness industry is what it's $7.8 trillion globally right now expected to grow faster than petroleum this year. So it was a really, really unique thing to kind of sit there and see.

But as the business aspect of what I'm getting to is that when I came out and came back to Miami and said, I want to start my own practice, my own owner, I guess you will. You just sit there and pick different modalities that make sense marginally, but also makes sense when it comes to the efficacy for patients. And that's the biggest thing I try to teach. Every time I do a lecture, or every time, anything that is helping doctors understand or even patients understand, it's all about the efficacy of how the patient feels and the results they get, as well as your profitability.

As you can see by the, you know, have a very crazy, weird lifestyle. This is what I spend my money on, and you probably see behind me weird stuff. But you have to sustain that because there's a certain sense of emotional health that I think every healthcare practitioner needs to have. A lot of physicians get burnt out. I'll be honest, if you sit there and you see doctors with a long face, overweight, hair loss, all that kind of stuff, you become a product of your own demise because you're trying to get everybody else to not die in the traditional medicine world and then your health slips along with that.

So with the wellness aspect, when it comes to basically helping physicians and helping nurse practitioners, or whoever else is in the audience,

Why Diagnostic Testing Matters 7:56

kind of understand how this industry can grow, it's unique to sit there and find out the modalities that you choose to offer need to be new, innovative, research-based, common sense-base, which is the most important thing, but you also have to portray it. Uh, and again, like, you know, from a young age, I was always at the physical. I mean, it used to be a fat kid. And then when, when you get tired of, keeping your t-shirt on the pool, because you kind of get the idea of like well, maybe I'll be the biggest kid and that turns out everything else that's turned into Mr.

USA and everything now. But the cool thing is. If you're in this industry, I think the biggest advice I can give anybody is you have to really portray what you are selling. That is the most important part. You cannot take weight loss advice from a fat physician. you cannot Take cardiovascular health advice From a physician who smells like cigarettes. Okay, so that's probably the Most important thing if you want to sell energy and sex and fitness damn well better look at And I came to learn really, really quick that the best way to kind of build my practice was from diagnostic testing.

And then whenever I tell people that, they're just like, the hell are you talking about? But it's 100% true, because everything that I do in this clinic, and again, we do everything. We're a one-stop shop from hyperbaric and ketamine to stem cells, exosomes, peptides. I mean, before peptide were a thing, I was doing peptidies in 2010, 2011, 2012, writing protocols for things like IGF1LR3 nationally. So you sit there and really realize that when you figure out somebody's unique chemistry or their unique biology, you can only really do that through diagnostic testing.

And that's where I sit and say is like, our diagnostic. Testing here is the most advanced in this world access has helped me develop this crazy panel that I mean, I picked in shoes. I'm in genetics are great. You can't really change it yet until CRISPR gets, you know, kind of legalized. It's not a war crime. So I picked and choose what I could not only, I guess, explain to my patients, but also treat. Things like food sensitivities, heavy mental toxicities, hidden pathogens like EBV, CMV and Candida.

All these different things when it comes to how I built my practice into what it is today, which I'm very proud of, started with diagnostic testing. And a lot of people don't realize that. They want to jump in and do peptides, they want jump into IVs, but they don' understand the chemistry, the basics, that the core fundamental reasoning of what makes a body tick. I think that's the most important part. You need to understand that basics of biology, biochem, to kind of understand how to interpret a diagnostic test to then offer every single possible modality across the entire spectrum.

So so say I'm testing for heavy metals. If I find heavy medals, or if I if i have the nerve to test for having metals, I damn well better be able to actually clear those heavy metal the other body. But I need to first explain to the patient, why am I testing this? Why am i charging you an exorbitant amount of money to tests for all these weird little things? It's because It's a puzzle. Your body is a Puzzle. And I can't put a puzzles together unless I have a picture. You know, you can try but it's kind of like you know shooting in the dark not very fun.

So the diagnostic piece of what I do is basically the picture of the puzzle and once I Have that picture as complete as as it is, I want me imaging I wanted the intake form needs to be huge, which I'm gonna get to in a second. But the Diagnostic piece Of that puzzle was the most important because then I consider say, well, okay, it' a man he's erectile dysfunction, but his testosterone is normal. Most physicians will be like, Give him more. I don't know. He's adrenaline fatigue. His thyroid is off.

It's growth hormones down. There's a million different things. See, it's mercury, more mercury than a tuna. So it is a situation where as I think diagnostic testing for me and the reason I'm so excited and honored to be actually speaking for Access Medical Labs and hosting their podcast is because that's what truly builds a real regenerative clinic. for all the patients that are listening to this, if you're going to a clinic or somebody you saw on Instagram, like, oh, that doctor knows everything, he's got a million followers, but you go there and you get a basic panel and then a bill for $20,000, a bunch of nonsense, and they don't explain why.

You aren't at a physician's office, you are literally at factory and are the cattle. So that's one of the biggest things. I always ask physicians or nurse practitioners or whoever is on the podcast two questions. And I'm going to ask myself those two question and I am going answer them as truly as I can to kind of explain why it's me here talking to you and not somebody else. First one is for any physician who is looking to get into this industry who's coming from traditional medicine, first and foremost look the part, be the parts, live the apart.

You've got to do that. If you want to sell this kind of medicine, you've gotta play this kinda medicine. So that's the most important thing. It's how you look, it's you feel, and it how to portray yourself. Second part of that is you need to know a lot about everything. And even if it is a little, You still need make it seem like it a lots because you can always figure it out from there. Because your body is the beautiful machine. it works in every which way. Everything is related. Your heart, your prostate, Your legs, everything is connected somehow.

So when you understand the smallest of things, like how methylene blue works or how iron is charged or things like that, it's really unique because then you can sit there and build a program out that makes sense across the board. You can be treating dementia, erectile dysfunction and autism all at the same time with the modalities and the mentality and philosophy. of actually how to do it. So know the basics of medicine, and know, the basis of what you're testing for, to kind of sit there and give yourself such a breadth of practice, because you won't just focus on IVs.

That's just nutrition.

Patient Intake and Practice Philosophy 13:10

that's one thing, just hormones. Just one things, Botox. If you know the core cornerstones of what wellness, regenerative, anti-aging, whatever the hell you want to call it, is my youngest patient's 12, my oldest patient is 95. I treat them almost the same, with a little bit of variance in the middle, because your body is the most beautiful machine on earth. And I think if you can sit there and understand how it works, you can offer the world to your patient and you're going to profit very well which is great and they're gonna get the efficacy.

So you are actually selling them something that they want, they deserve and that's actually gonna help them out which I think is fascinating. That's kind of the biggest tips I can get to that when it comes to explaining to physicians who are trying to get in this industry or who already in the industry and maybe struggling or here in industry hear this and be like Maybe I'm not being the best physician I can, you know, I mean, like, and it's a situation where this is a very, very great industry to be in cash wise, time wise prestige wise.

It's great, but at the end of the day, it is the efficacy of what you can actually bring to the table. I think diagnostic testing is cornerstone of that. Beyond that, you have the intake form. The intake forms, again, always, the labs are important, most important part, but treat the patient first. My biggest thing is, whenever you saw Nip Tuck, I referenced it once. I'm gonna reference it probably in many more times in my life, because that's why I chose to stay a doctor. Ah, love that. Love that TV show.

Um, The Intake Form is what the patients is. It's always awesome. You know, Niptuck was, tell me what you don't like about yourself. Mine is tell three things you want to change about myself, or about your self. And it's unique to sit there and see, cause patients always start to shoot off the cuffs, and they're like, You know what, yeah, sleep. Yeah, I want sleep! No, it's kind of a thing they want fitness and philates and all, but the most important thing is you want to sit there and see what they really want, because you'll be able to correlate that with whatever lap hours you find, which is fascinating, Because you can sit and as you're reading their labs, be like, you see why you aren't having good sex?

Your testosterone's here, your thyroid's there, and your cortisol's all here. And all of the sudden, You're not only giving them what the want. You are explaining it to them, And you look pretty smart, But you are smart. Which is awesome. So I think the intake format, you've got to develop a very, very good one and in-depth one. We're actually debuting this beautiful AI that I've created with a couple of very unique partners that takes all this into one, even the wearables for God's sakes. The more information a doctor has, and with today's AI and everything else, I mean you can get such a precision-based root cause medical program In minutes, you know, I mean, as long as you're a physician who knows how to interpret it and actually how, how the profit, which is kind of a cool thing.

Um, so when you come in this industry as a visitor, who's here already trying to augment who you are, or a position who is new into this. Trying to be the best version of what you can possibly be. Always present yourself as your medicine, diagnostics and intake forms of the most important part. Those are the, that's where you should start and then move up from there. Then I always ask if you were a patient coming into, into the industry from traditional medicine through tail between your legs, what is the thing you look for in a Physician?

And I have a lot of problems with a lotta physicians in this thing. They did an article for me, I forget which magazine it was called, the most hated doctor among doctors, and I took pride in that. I'm liking now, talking to a lots more physicians where that's changed. So again, Wellness medicine wasn't even known, so now all of a sudden, it's more important than traditional medicine. So there's a lot of different change going on. But it is a situation where every patient needs to go into their physician.

Does this physician look the part? You can't walk into a sloth. You cannot. It's not a man or a woman. The doctor's got to present themselves. This staff has to represent themselves as well. This is a health clinic. This was a medical longevity. I'm going to pay a bunch of money to feel the best I ever have. You need to have people that actually look the part for it. So when you're walking in, if it's a mess, it is disorganized, just walk out because their entire practice will be a mass. Um, second, where is this physician done?

What does he do? Where is he trained? How long has he been in the industry for? And that's where the price point should kind of start. And I want to walk into a position used to be cardiologist because just because he came from John Hopkins, all of a sudden like, well, he's charging me $10,000 for this. Why? I mean, again, The more credentialed you get in traditional medicine, usually the worse are you off in this industry. Again, more specialized, you look at a body like this. More generalized, looking at the whole aspect.

So always see the positions, credentialing, who they are, what they've done, and how they kind of got into this industries. All of a sudden they were in cardiology, pulmonology and endocrinology. Oh, next day I'm a longevity doctor, no you're not. You know, this takes a lot more than just getting a degree or getting certification. You gotta live and breathe it. So always match the price point to the physician's quality, how they look and overall energy for it, and I think those two things for both physicians and patients that are trying to get in this industry are kind of the most important things that make this ministry grow.

We are in the cusp of a medical reflection point, which I thing is beautiful because the amount of growth this industries about to have is mind blowing. AI, CRISPR, probably in three years you'll see CRISP come out more. Stem cells, Florida is the first state to have it.

Future of Wellness Medicine and Closing Remarks 17:48

Lucky me, I live in Florida. So now you can institute things like stem cells that come as programs. Never just go in and like, again, another big point. You can never just offer stem cell PRP exosomes as a standalone. If you're doing that, you are doing an injustice to the patient and yourself when it comes to it You have to sit there and understand that everything is connected. Peptides aren't just a one-off type thing. These are not cheap things. They are expensive to you and they're expensive for your patients.

So therefore, maximize it. It's okay to charge the patient a little bit more because they are going to get the efficacy for it I don't touch patients with stem cells, exosomes, anything like that until I've made their body work correctly. That's why when we charge X amount of dollars and all of a sudden it works fantastically because I got the body ready. So there's always a process for it. Never jump in the deep end when the patient's not ready for. And if you're a patient, don't jump into the Deep End until you understand, am I healthy enough to jump to the Depend?

Because if not, you are just burning money and creating expensive toilet water. That's no fun. So it's a situation, I wanted to jump on here and kind of just give an idea of who I was, where I got to, which again, like I said, my staff is amazing, the location I have is out of this world, sexiest city on earth, this is the hub of it right now. When it comes to wellness, Miami, you cannot get better than that and thankfully we own Miami Beach here. And it is just kind a very, very unique time to be not only a doctor but a patient because This this industry is going to grow.

It's too big to fail now. I mean, you know, Big Pharma doesn't like it. They're going probably jump on board too, which they're already kind of you saw the GLP ones. Um, I think they are going slowly drip in peptides and then legislation will kind to get there because now all of a sudden Big pharma impromptu of it so of course every every politician is gonna love it and the FDA as crooked as they along with the CDC and everybody else is actually going have to play ball. But that's a whole another podcast.

So it's just a situation where as you know, I wanted to kind of introduce why I'm actually here speaking with you guys, kind understand why access medical labs for me has been such a godsend because they've let me develop such unique panel which they can't do for any any physician or nurse practitioner, anybody in healthcare, they can help you develop such unique panels that help You basically tailor to your crowd. And again, we offer everything because I can treat everything. If you're just in this industry, you are not going to be offering things that you can't treat.

That's a huge deal. So working with Access, I've sent many physicians over there, and they work with them, which is great to see how that teamwork kind of works together. I just want to jump on here, guys. Thank you again for following the podcast. It's been super fun to have. We've got a lot more fun in the coming episodes, so I hope you stay tuned. Again, it's a lifestyle medicine podcast. I'm Dr. Ivan Rosilko. Check us out on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music. Send a pigeon, you'll find us somehow.

But again, has been super fun. Hit us up and we really look forward to bringing you some of the most innovative medical news, medical jargon, and all sorts of medical modalities that are coming out this day and age. Rock and roll. Thanks for joining us today on the Lifestyle Medicine Podcast. At Access Labs, every innovation we pursue is driven by one bold purpose, making personalized medicine more practical and accessible for patients and providers. If this episode sparked new ideas or challenged how you think about patient care, awesome.

Follow the show and share it with a colleague who's ready to level up their practice. Head over to our website at accesslabs.com and register your practitioner account today. You'll get access to over thousand routine and advanced biomarkers with 24-hour results. When signing up, select Lifestyle Medicine Podcast as how you heard about us and score 10% off your first invoice. Oh, and don't forget, drop us a review. It helps more practitioners like you find us. We'll see you next time.