Student Spotlight: Dayana Harrison

Earlier this year, we celebrated the Community Impact Scholarship recipients, individuals dedicated to transforming health and wellness in their communities. Through the partnership between the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy, the Institute for Functional Medicine, and a generous grant from VoLo Foundation, these scholarships provide full tuition for our March 2025 Health Coach Certification Program class. Today, we’re honored to spotlight Dayana Harrison, a passionate midwife and advocate for holistic maternal care.

Dayana’s journey into functional medicine health coaching is deeply rooted in her midwifery practice. As a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) in the final year of her licensure, she has long seen the need for a more integrative approach to prenatal, postnatal, and birth care. Her experience working with families—particularly those in underserved communities—has fueled her mission to bridge the gap between traditional midwifery and functional medicine.

“If we want to improve the world, we need to improve each person. So, that brought me into trying to start in functional medicine and brought me into seeking functional medicine coaching as well.“

Dayana Harrison, incoming FMCA student

Dayana’s dedication to equitable healthcare has taken her around the world. From the Philippines and Nepal to her home country of Colombia, she has provided midwifery care to families with limited access to high-quality medical services. She is particularly passionate about serving military families and low-income communities who often struggle to receive personalized, preventative healthcare.

For Dayana, FMCA represents the opportunity to enhance her ability to care for expecting and new mothers, helping them achieve optimal health through lifestyle and behavioral change. She envisions a future where functional medicine coaching is integrated into midwifery, ensuring that all families—regardless of their economic status—receive not just adequate care, but exceptional support for lifelong health.

We’re thrilled to welcome Dayana to FMCA and look forward to the lasting impact she will make in communities across the globe. Her story is a powerful reminder that true healthcare transformation begins before birth—with compassionate, informed, and holistic support for every mother and child.

Watch the Interview

Watch Dayana’s Student Spotlight interview with Dr. Sandi here.

About VoLo Foundation

VoLo Foundation is a private nonprofit organization with a mission “to accelerate change and global impact by supporting science-based climate solutions, enhancing education, and improving health” and a vision for a “planet where all beings are ensured access to a sustainable and clean environment, health services, and education.”

Transcript

Dr. Sandi: First of all, I do want to be the first to officially welcome you to our community of health coaches, future health coaches, and by extension, our larger functional medicine community. And I know this will be a transformational journey for you. So, just to begin, I’m curious as to what is driving you to become a health coach?

Dayana: So, I believe I’m already one in the sense of that I’m a midwife, I’m a CPM. I mean, I’m in the last year of my license. So, midwifery to me is already being a coach, right? A coach.

Dr. Sandi: Yes, yes. Mm-hmm.

Dayana: …I believe that there’s so much need. There is a huge, huge need from functional medicine in the prenatal, postnatal and the birth work.

Dr. Sandi: For sure.

Dayana: So, I wanted to not only be a midwife but bring that functionality into my practice, into the places that I travel. So, one thing that I dream of, that my mission is as midwifery is to serve those undeserving…not undeserving because it sounds wrong but those who deserve the most, maybe that’s what I want to say.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah, yeah.

Dayana: The families that I work with are usually low-income families, low-rank families in the military, that otherwise wouldn’t have access to high quality care. And it’s not fair to me that because we have less access…not less access but less income, and less money, less means, that we cannot get good care. And some of the areas that I have traveled with in my midwifery program have been in the Philippines where there is a lot of poverty, in Nepal, where there’s a lot of poverty, in my own country, Colombia, where there is actually so much need.

And I feel that during these travels, I have felt that most families get kind of the standard care but they never receive a little bit in beyond. And I know we’re giving free care, things like that. But still, I feel like if we want to improve the world, we need to improve each person and how better to improve each future person that is going to be born. So, that brought me into trying to start in functional medicine and brought me into seeking functional coaching as well.

Dr. Sandi: Well, I love it. And you are going to touch so many lives and help so many people get healthier and have access to functional medicine coaching. What attracted you to us, to the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy?

Dayana: Well, I follow the Institute for Functional Medicine. So, they post a lot, and they partnership a lot with the Functional Institute for Health Coaching. So, that’s how I know about the institute, and that’s how it brought me to look more and to seek the scholarship as well.

Dr. Sandi: Well, yes, we are a collaboration with IFM, the Institute for Functional Medicine, and we work closely with their senior faculty. And so you will be learning from them, the webinars that you’ll have access to, their toolkit items, will be very helpful when you are out working as a functional medicine-certified health coach. So, I’m excited for you to start in the March class. Do you have any questions that you’d like to ask me?

Dayana: Well, most of the questions that I have had, I already kind of like answered them through, like, reading, that, you know, it starts in March. It’s kind of like you follow online the program. What are other requirements? Okay, what will be the other requirements to successfully finish the program?

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. Sure. To think in ways…to visualize yourself as a health coach as graduating from FMCA, to know that you have the wisdom, you have the ability to connect with others, which is what you need as a health coach, the ability to listen actively to somebody. And you have those already. And you have the ability to learn new skills, and we will support you every step of the way. So, we never want you to feel lost in the program, to feel like you are not getting your questions answered or to feel like you can’t make it through.

So, you are an adult learner, as are our other students, and you will have the support of other students through your cohort group, through your course facilitator. And so we want to provide that high level of support and keep you feeling confident that you’ve got this. And we have your back, and we are supporting you. We want to see you succeed. And this is something that people say when they go through the program, yes, they will learn functional medicine, and they will learn coaching skills. But the journey itself will be one of personal transformation where you can use these skills, and strategies, and new teachings to help you communicate better with everyone in your life, to help you feel your strengths, and to use them. And so we’re very excited for you to start.

So, this scholarship was made possible through the generosity of the VoLo Foundation. And just in closing, I was wondering if you had any words that you would like to say to the folks at the VoLo Foundation.

Dayana: Yes. One, thank you for supporting midwifery. I do believe that midwifery is one of the areas that can change healthcare, especially for those who identify as women and those who give birth and for future generations. So, investing in a scholarship to a midwife means the world because you are investing in future families, in future generations. So, I really appreciate that they looked into giving it to someone in this field because it’s so much needed and the need is not just localized. It’s worldwide.

And being able to not only be overseas, I mean, with the military but also having the donations from others to volunteer in clinical trips in other countries have impacted me to realize that functional medicine, and functional care, and individualized care applies to every corner of the world and applies to, even more so, those who need it, who are in need. So, really thankful for that and for looking into investing. That’s how I see it like to brighten the future by putting something into midwifery, because I know there are different backgrounds in this coaching program and in the program, but I do feel it as like, “Oh, my goodness, thank you for believing in midwifery.” That’s how I took it, more than as a medical person. It’s like thank you for believing in midwifery and thank you for seeing that midwifery can benefit from it and can truly impact the world so much more than sometimes we realize.

Dr. Sandi: Oh, that’s so beautifully said. Well, I know that you will go on to make a huge difference in the lives of women and in future generations yet to be born. Thanks to your choosing to study with us, to apply for the scholarship, and we felt that you were very, very worthy of this scholarship. And I am committed to helping you through the program and seeing you thrive, both as a student and as a graduate.

Dayana: This means the world to me. I know my words might not be able to articulate it as better as I want to, but it does mean the world to me. It does. It is truly a blessing. And I was not expecting it. I was like, “I’m going to apply just…” So, yeah, it just means the world more than you and they can imagine. It does mean a lot much more than sometimes I might convey.

Dr. Sandi: Well, it has been a pleasure talking with you, and I can’t wait for March to come so that you could get started. And looking forward to seeing you in my office hours. That’s one of the things that I offer to students as well as to graduates, and so looking forward to see you then.