Elizabeth Frates, MD

Elizabeth (Beth) Pegg Frates is a pioneer in lifestyle medicine education and an award-winning teacher at Harvard Medical School, as well as at the Harvard Extension School. She currently practices lifestyle medicine through her health and wellness coaching company, Wellness Synergy, LLC.

Frates graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, majoring in both psychology and biology. She then attended Stanford Medical School, interned at Massachusetts General Hospital, and completed her residency in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School where she served as chief resident. After residency, Frates focused on stroke and specifically stroke prevention. After co-authoring a book titled Life After Stroke: The Guide to Recovering Your Health and Preventing Another Stroke (Johns Hopkins Press, 2006), Frates spent a great deal of time lecturing and writing about health and prevention topics, including nutrition and exercise. Fascinated by how to empower people to adopt healthy habits, Frates pursued further training in behavior change through coaching programs and motivational interviewing courses. Frates has co-authored papers and book chapters on behavior change.

In 2008, Frates developed the concept of a lifestyle medicine interest group (LMIG) and has been successfully running one at Harvard Medical School since that time. These LMIGs offer a parallel curriculum for students interested in healthy habits to learn about basic concepts in lifestyle medicine through lunch and learn lectures. As board liaison for the professionals in training program at the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, Frates has created standardized PowerPoint presentations on lifestyle medicine basics, exercise prescription, nutrition, and behavior change for faculty and students wanting to launch their own LMIG at their schools.