Today we’d like to introduce you to Raphael Balbino.
Hi Raphael, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My story begins in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where I was born and raised until I moved to the US with my parents at the age of 12. My first interest in Medicine sparked around the age of 7-9 when my oldest sister had attended nursing school and I would peruse her anatomy and physiology textbooks and lose myself in them. Upon finishing High School in the San Francisco Bay Area, I began college at my local community college and leaped through the course catalogue to select classes I was drawn towards as I hadn’t yet chosen a major. It was as though the Anatomy and Physiology course jumped out of the page and I picked it. Needless to say, my love for the study of the layers of the human frame was confirmed and it was then that I decided to pursue the long and weary road towards becoming a physician—a tall order for a somewhat recent immigrant who had to learn English from scratch just 5 years prior. But despite my counselor’s advice to the contrary, given all of the difficulty inherent to the path, I charged onwards. I went on to get a Bachelor’s of Science in Human Biology at UC San Diego, then proceeded to study for the MCAT and got in at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Medicine. Upon earning my MD degree, my family and I (by now, I was married and had a 6-month old child) moved to North Carolina where I attended Duke for the Family Medicine Residency and then completed a Geriatric Fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Those were at times tumultuous times of much pruning and pressing but it all served a greater purpose of forging character and molded me into becoming an empathetic physician. Upon finishing all my training, we decided to move further south to be closer to where my parents had moved and to be closer to the ocean and we moved to Jacksonville for an outpatient Geriatric position. I was quite content doing what I had trained to do and life was good with a growing family—now, with 3 children. Over the next 3 years, I was promoted twice and became not only medical director of my Geriatric division but also worked as an associate chief medical information officer for Baptist Health. It was a great season of learning, networking, building leadership skills, helping colleagues in different ways, and continuing to practice medicine—now, part-time. Since the beginning of my practice, as an attending physician, I became known in the area for having a different approach and perspective, leaning more nutritional and natural—which actually blended quite well with our goal of de-prescribing medicines. Much of that came from my wife’s own interests as well as her own health issues that prompted her to turn to dietary solutions, gut health, digestive support, etc., and since she had had a great deal of success helping herself without prescription drugs, that awakened something in me that sought to also understand those realities more deeply and try to connect with patients around those issues. Fast forward a few years and now we are in the middle of covid, and more and more I found myself yearning to strike out on my own to become independent from a large system and all of the red tape that comes attached to it in today’s America. I was blessed to be introduced to Dr. Shirley Hartman, the original founder of the Mandarin Wellness Center, who wished to retire and have a like-minded physician take over her practice. Well, that first phone call was like talking with my long-lost relative. We hit it off immediately and had so much in common and the rest is history! In March of 2023, we officially took the helm working side by side with Dr. Hartman on a master transition plan that went on for 90 days—enough to cycle through most of her patients at the time. She served a complex and mixed population that included all sorts of chronic conditions, most notably Lyme disease, and I felt called to take on the challenge not because I thought I necessarily had what it takes but rather, because those who suffer with this condition deserve to have people who really care and will stick by them to help get them well no matter what—when so many of them are dismissed for being too complex or outright gaslit and told “it’s all in their head.” It’s been a challenging season of my career but without any hesitation, the most fulfilling by far! Not only have we strived to carry on the legacy of Dr. Hartman leveraging nutritional principles, herbals, judicious use of antibiotics and other repurposed medicines, Frequency Specific Microcurrent, and IV therapies, but we have added TruDOSE (IV Platelet-Rich Plasma), and SOT/Q-Restrain, which have brought so many breakthroughs for our patients throughout this past year, and we continue even now to search for the latest and greatest because we love and want the best for our patients.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No way! Some challenges were that I never had owned a business before and I don’t come from a business-minded family per se, so the transition not only included an expansion of the scope of practice into a functional and integrative style but also learning on the fly how to lead a small corporation. I couldn’t have done it without my manager, Chelsea Thrift, who embodies the soul of the center, as she began to help Dr. Hartman, her mother, as a teenager. Another challenge was that we had a few times that it looked like we were going to have to close the practice due to lack of funds to pay our staff, but our patients have been so kind to let their friends and loved ones about our services and we have more than doubled in size in 3 years since the transition took place.
We’ve been impressed with Mandarin Wellness Center, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
We offer many services that are summarized in our website: mandarinwellnesscenter.com
In short, primary care, preventive care, some urgent care, functional and integrative care, chronic Lyme, autoimmune disease treatments, herbals, hormone replacement therapy with bio-identicals, peptide therapy, energy medicine, advanced cancer testing and therapeutics through RGCC (Greek Lab), IV therapies, IV Ozone, TruDOSE, Q-Restrain (formerly known as “SOT”)
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
Over the next decade, a much more nuanced understanding of the microbiome will take center stage, and how it will be fine-tuned for health outcomes.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mandarinwellnesscenter.com
- Instagram: @balbinotito
