Meet Your Providers
Christopher H. Roberts, MD
Dr. Roberts’ goal in functional medicine is to help patients who have been through conventional medicine and are frustrated with the fact that “no one listens to me” and “all they want to do is treat my symptoms but never get to the source of my problem.” He has a goal to find the root cause allowing patients to thrive with his holistic approach and not merely survive with conventional treatments.
Dr. Roberts pursued urogynecology which led to his eventual discovery of functional medicine. “In urogynecology, I was introduced to an in-office-based treatment called pelvic floor therapy. This technique offered a surgery free, no pain, no risk approach to incontinence and was addressing the actual causes for urinary and/or stool leakage.” This disorder is “rooted” in the nerves and muscles of the pelvic floor that control those bodily functions.
Dr. Roberts has a passion to focus on each individual patient as a unique person with a specific problem. Dr. Roberts states that he, “hates that traditional medicine wants merely to label patients and often treat symptoms rather than addressing the cause of their problem.” Dr. Roberts would rather spend his time listening to the patient describe their symptoms in detail, perform an appropriate and often more detailed physical examination and order comprehensive and personalized testing to gain a better insight to the problem facing each individual.
Fundamentally, traditional medicine limits physicians by requiring them to “stay within the parameters they set” creating a kind of ‘fence’ around the practice of medicine. Dr. Roberts admits “As soon as I was introduced to functional medicine, it’s like someone opened the gate to that fence allowing for a much deeper understanding of disease and giving more options to treat conditions. I realize now that I can run as hard and as fast to the horizon and will never see another fence again. How refreshing.” He also states “It’s not as if there is no place for traditional medicine. I tell patients all the time that the advantage of my medical degree (MD) is that I have the ability to practice both from a traditional medicine perspective and adding my new-found knowledge in herbal, nutritional medicine to help them more completely with their problems."
Dr. Roberts has continued to study in new areas of medicine. He has completed a master’s course in lipidology with a follow up course which has him as the areas only certified Bale Doneen Method physician. This certification has allowed Dr. Roberts to offer a cardiovascular and stroke risk detection and prevention program that involves more detailed lab testing for lipid/cholesterol abnormalities that could signal impending risk for a heart attack and/or stroke. He has completed certification in prodrome testing as well. This testing offers a potential for getting a deeper look into cell membrane health and its relationship to cardiovascular disease risk, neurodegenerative disease risk (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, etc.) and cancer risk. He is very excited about the possibilities associated with this testing as these are the three leading causes of death in America today.
His favorite activity outside work is golf, and he often plays the sport with his children. He also plays tennis, likes to fish, garden, and do landscaping on their 11-acre property. “I love going on vacations with my family, snow skiing, spending time with them.” He also confesses that he’s “a repressed artist.” His mother, who was a gifted artist, taught him to paint with watercolors. “I’d love to get back to that someday” but for now he is too busy with his practice. Dr. Roberts was able to complete a special art project with his mom before she died a year ago, and that picture is hanging in his office to this day.
Dr. Roberts’ life motto is “to honor Christ in all that I do and to die to myself daily.” Dr. Roberts is dedicated to his ministry to provide sound healthcare to his patients. “I never want to lose that ministry perspective. I ask patients regularly to pray for me in order that I might hear God’s guidance for their care.”
Jill Endicott, APN, FNP - BC
For Jill Endicott, Customized Relief’s new nurse practitioner, customizing care for her patients begins with listening. “It’s not just listening to what they’re saying, but their tone—how they’re saying it. ‘I’m fine’ isn’t very convincing.” Jill wants to know as much as possible about each patient—where they’re from, where they’ve lived, what their childhood was like, what their diet looks like, how well they sleep, etc. Creating the right atmosphere is important, she says, “so they feel free to share everything.”
After the initial consultation, she and Dr. Roberts work together to draw up a customized treatment plan for each patient, “to help them be the best version of themselves that they can be. We want to maximize their health as much as possible.”
Jill has worked at several clinics during her career, first as an RN and then, after earning a Master of Nursing Science in 2001, as a nurse practitioner. She became frustrated to hear patients complaining, “I’m taking this but I don’t feel better."
She was also frustrated by time restraints imposed because of the way conventional medicine has to conform to the requirements of insurance companies. “It’s more like cattle. I couldn’t spend an hour with a patient to teach and guide them as I do here with Dr. Roberts. You fought being behind all the time.”
But it was her own experience as a patient with hormonal issues which traditional medicine had failed to resolve that led Jill to Dr. Roberts. “I wasn’t feeling good. I was exhausted.” With his holistic approach to her health—mind, body, spirit—Jill began to see improvements. And there was another benefit she hadn’t expected—he invited her to interview for the position of nurse practitioner. The interview went well, and she was asked to come for a second interview, but “the day I was supposed to meet him I was diagnosed with Covid. He helped me through that. I don’t know what I would have done without him,” she said.
Jill and her husband, Bill, have seven children and thirteen grandchildren. She enjoys gardening, fishing and hunting—“anything that has to do with the outdoors. We go deep sea fishing a lot. We love to go to Grand Lake fishing. I grew up on the White River trout fishing. I’d go crappie fishing with my dad at Norfork Lake.”
A funny little tidbit about Jill is that she used to raise goats and had a herd of 150, “but Bill got rid of them because I kept trying to name them all. They’re pets!”
Jill says she’s “excited to be able to help patients in a new more holistic way. Dr. Roberts and I work together, consult together on our patients, and come up with a customized plan.”