Editors’ Note

William Focazio, M.D., is a reputable physician in Northern New Jersey who specializes in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology. He is a graduate of St. George’s University School of Medicine. He continued his post-doctoral training at St. Michael’s Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey where he completed his residency in Internal Medicine, and continued on to complete a fellowship in Infectious Disease. He subsequently completed a fellowship in Gastroenterology at St. Joseph’s Medical Center. Dr. Focazio is also a recipient of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Award, and was elected to the Board of Ethical Physicians. He is the Founder and CEO of the Endo Surgical Center of North Jersey. Dr. Focazio is also the Founder and CEO of P.A.S.T., Retired Athletes Medical Group. Recently, Dr. Focazio developed a cutting edge concussion program that is being used to treat retired NFL players, as well as high school and college athletes.

Institution Brief

The purpose of Eternity Medicine Institute (www.eternitynynj.com; EMI) is to empower individuals to manage health risk. The company provides age management and preventative-based medicine with the goal of saving lives and enhancing the quality of life through a proactive, preventive model. They safeguard lives through their progressive health care screens, and by consistently detecting disease before it occurs.

How did this business evolve?

I’ve been practicing medicine for 30 years. I have practiced internal medicine and studied a whole host of infectious diseases – I treated the first AIDS patient in New Jersey, for example.

In most medical practices today, we treat many diseases and various aspects of those diseases – much of it in a cookie-cutter fashion. I always questioned this approach to treatment. I wondered why we could not implement holistic or osteopathic methodologies, and involve various elements of other modalities of medicine, such as Eastern medicine. I thought there must be more pieces to the puzzle, and I wanted to bring them together through an integrated, proactive approach to medicine.

EMI has afforded me the opportunity to answer the many nagging questions that have gone unanswered over the years. By examining factors such as a patient’s nutrition, their immunology, and their genetic history, we can now properly create an overall map of health and treat the cause of the disease, not just the symptoms. In the past, it was difficult to analyze the DNA genome to find out what diseases may be lurking, leaving us as slaves of our genetic destiny. In 2003, the cost of doing your entire genome was $1 billion; in 2007, it dropped down to $300,000; now, we do it for $15,000.

EMI evolved out of need using specific modalities of medicine that most people may not turn to for treatment or are unaware can actually help prevent illness. We are discovering more and more about our idiopathic diseases. I saw EMI as an avenue to practice proactive medicine, as opposed to the modern day conventional approach of reactive medicine. In doing so, we are able to head off certain life-changing or life-altering diseases like diabetes preemptively, several years prior to it’s manifestation.

How broad are the areas you can delve into?

Full-body imaging is performed using an EBCT scanner, which emits 20 times less radiation than a conventional CAT scanner. We not only look to see if there are tumors, lesions or areas of concern in the body, but we can also evaluate your risk for cardiovascular disease.

Another focus is toxin reduction. We can reduce a great deal of body toxins since there are many we ingest, like heavy metals and so forth. We test for them, and have treatments that can eliminate them from the body.

Cardio-metabolic screening is one of the major components of our practice. We do an evaluation and focus on metabolic syndrome, which involves hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and high cholesterol. We work with our patients to help greatly reduce and even reverse it.

We do hormone restoration; we are finding that many people are hypothyroid. We have an advanced testing panel that collects up to 250 biomarkers. Having this information is invaluable when looking at endocrine problems, nutritional imbalance, and organ status.

In addition, we do allergy and food sensitivity testing. Many underestimate the power of our diet and how important eating right can be, and realize that a diet needs to be tailored to the individual. We also have a cancer screen program to detect genetic predisposition and test for any early stages of cancer. We do this using the EBCT scanner, as well as genetic tests, and blood tests for different biomarkers, blood markers, and antibodies.

How broad is your patient profile?

It’s very broad. When we evaluate patients, we focus on the specific issues affecting them and develop an individual wellness program for them.

This is custom-made medical care. The personalized aspect of our practice is very good for executives. Each of our patients goes through the entire screening program.

We have three categories: the personalized medical concierge, which is more of an executive program and a family program; the Healthy Age Management Program, for people who want to stay healthy and prevent disease; and a program for those people looking for answers, who have been chronically ill or misdiagnosed, or who haven’t gotten the results they need to have a better quality of life.

Keeping patients healthy by preventing disease and treating the cause behind the disease is the foundation of EMI.

What led to the work you’ve done with retired athletes?

I have been a sports fan all my life, and when the complex medical and behavioral health issues many retired players deal with came to my attention, I knew I could do something to help by combining reactive and proactive medical protocols. Many of them have complicated medical issues that stem from their time in the game – many have suffered multiple concussions to the point where their short-term memories are almost nonexistent. They can suffer from depression, rage, and addiction issues at a level I have never experienced as a physician.

I put 18 doctors together and a staff to form an organization called P.A.S.T. (Pain, Alternatives, Solutions, and Treatment) and utilized the Retired Athletes Medical Resource Group to help treat these former athletes. We have since successfully treated hundreds of players, and we have turned lives around. In doing so, we created a 501(c)(3) where the professional athletes that P.A.S.T treats pay it forward by facilitating unique high school and college sports education programs designed to empower young athletes, and address the serious issues they face, such as concussions, addiction, and peer pressure. P.A.S.T has invested over $4 million in education awareness initiatives.

Do you take the time to appreciate the success you have had in this area?

I get a satisfaction that motivates me. There is nothing greater than having a patient respond and having them feel better. If I can help fix something, I will.•