Meet Naila Goldenberg, Md | Owner of Functional Endocrinology (FUNCDE, LLC) and Functional Aesthetics, LLC

We had the good fortune of connecting with Naila Goldenberg, Md and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Naila, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I started practicing Functional Medicine while working for Mercy Health more than 10 years ago and realized that the business structure there does not support more wholistic evaluation and treatment of my patients. Due to that we opened the Practice that allows us to spend significantly longer time with each patient so we can get into root causes of their endocrine conditions like Hashimoto disease (major cause of under-active thyroid), Adrenal insufficiency, diabetes, pituitary disorders and such. Now we added the Functional Aesthetics practice that helps people to look and feel better from inside out and outside in. Our vision is to empower our patients to be crucial part of their health journey.
Our Mission is to create a community of people, who want to improve their lives and health through a change in lifestyle, and behavior.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Our business is DBA Functional Endocrinology (FUNCDE,LLC) was opened in 2017. We started it with Michael Spivak, APRN, who is NP and still works in the office, and with Scott Melvin as an office manager.
We are like a small mom and pop shop: Michael Spivak has worked with me since he was NP student. He grew up to be great Endocrinology Provider. We are grateful for his service. Our front desk stuff is Elliott- my step son and Eddie- his best friend since High school. Our MA, Rachel Allen is daughter of my patient, whom I know since 2003. Another MA, Melissa Bornovali is daughter of colleague, she is building up her skills while waiting the acceptance to Medical school. My sister, Amina Efimenko helps with some of the administrative duties. We work with Billing manager, Betty, who works with us since the office opening.

During COVID our practice had to shift to Telemedicine. We already had Telemedicine for few of our patients from outside of Cincinnati (still continue to provide consulting Telemediciene services to patients from different parts of the country).

COVID was challenging time for us as for everyone else. Very quickly we realized that regular Medical practice model and Functional medicine are not compatible and we had to switch to Signature MD model-concierge practice. I see new patients to learn their medical histories, ask questions about Root causes like stress, sleep, hormonal change, gastro-intestinal health, toxic exposure, prior infections, their genetics and order appropriate tests, we talk about lifestyle changes and possible dietary interventions. During the second visit patients spend about an hour discussing the results of their tests and outcomes of their lifestyle/diet implementation. After that patient can choose to stay with me, in Signature MD Concierge Practice or start seeing Michal Spivak, APRN or Jean, Taggart, APRN, who joined our practice 2 years ago and who is focused part time on Functional Endocrinology and part time on Functional- Sport’s Medicine.

I was excited to add Aesthetics and Regenerative Medicine as a natural progression of the practice. Regenerative medicine opens new horizons to the treatment of complex cases and even to “simple” task of looking younger. We utilize Exosomes and different peptides in treatment of our patients/clients. I was so enthralled about science and practice of aesthetics, that I graduated from online international Cosmetology school in 2024 and continue to take classes and courses in regenerative medicine.
I am a perpetuate student and always trying to learn new things. Part of our Concierge practice I give weekly lectures to members who are interested in something new. I created close to 100 different lectures over the last 3.5 years.

Plus currently I am a core faculty in the newly accredited Mercy Anderson Internal Medicine Residency and looking forward to teaching principles of Functional Medicine to new crop of the physicians. I do believe that Functional Medicine is the future of the medicine.

In our office we have monthly Color meditation classes- where I teach people to use colors to relax-frequently it will be Acrylic poring, that I learned myself during COVID. Did you know that your stress hormone cortisol goes down after just 40 mins of doing art, no matter of your artistic abilities? Once a year we sell paintings at our silent Auctions and donate money to worthy causes.
In general, painting is my way to relax and it is not that I am a great artist, but I am getting there and more importantly- painting helps me stay in balance between left and right side of my brain and keeps me sane.

When do I sleep, people ask me- I do sleep my 6-7 h per night-that is super important for our good functioning.
I try to live as I teach my patients.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
It would depend on the friend, for different people good time means different things.

Some of them I would take to downtown, others- to hike in the park. For kids- Children’s museum, Zoo, Aquarium in Newport and King’s Island.

For artistic friends- to Pendleton center on the last Friday of the month, or to the Art museum.
To people who love classical music- to Music Hall and for musicals-Aronoff center.

I am Gluten free, so I always have to check if the restaurant offers GF options. We like several places in the area: Clyborne, Phenercian Tavern, Mazunte. With relatives we occasionally go to the Russian restaurants.

We enjoyed Blink a lot and I would highly recommend that.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My mother was a physician in Russia and I grew up watching her help her patients. In Russia physicians were paid less than taxi drivers and only truly dedicated people pursued the carrier of a Medical Doctor. She was always my role model.

The Mentor whom I am very grateful for is Dr Charles Glueck from Cholesterol Center. He was my mentor since the Internal Medical Residency at Jewish Hospital, Kenwood in 2000. He practiced multi-specialty medicine (Lipidology, hematology, endocrinology) and helped multiple people with complex medical conditions, who could not get help anywhere else.
Many times Functional Medicine Providers do the same by looking outside of the box and finding conditions that were not previously detected and providing the tools to improving the health of the patient.

My life partner and current office manager, Scott Melvin, who actually introduced me to the Functional Medicine. He always listens to interesting podcasts and reads a lot of books. One of the podcasts was about Functional Medicine. We started listening to it together and the rest is the history.

Of cause the rest of my family who supported us emotionally and physically over the years. My currently 90 yo father came from Russia after my mother’s passing and helped me to raise my son while I was in Endocrine Fellowship.

I am grateful for my ex-husband. We came to USA in 1996 with his family to reunite with his relatives. He left us at the end of the residency in about 2002, but that allowed me tremendous personal growth and opened up the room for my current life partner and soulmate.

Website: funedo.com and functionalaestheticsoh.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cincy_functional_aesthetics/ or https://www.instagram.com/functionalendocrinology or https://www.instagram.com/fun.endo.art

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/funendo and https://www.facebook.com/cincyfunctionalaesthetics/ and https://www.facebook.com/funendoart/

Image Credits
mostly selfies