Bio.

During his medical school years at the University of Lisbon, and motivated by personal health issues, Dr. Leal started investigating new and less compartmentalized approaches to patient care. These would focus on each patient’s biological uniqueness and looked for the underlying imbalances leading to disease.

Many of his questions were answered by functional medicine, a holistic approach with solid scientific basis. He became fascinated by this evolution of medicine, which better suits the 21st century healthcare needs, due to the rising prevalence of chronic illness.

Looking to expand his personal and profissional horizons, Dr. Leal moved to the United States in 2011, where he completed Internal Medicine Residency at a university hospital in New York City. In addition, he worked two more years as an academic hospitalist in the beautiful state of Connecticut. An internist at heart, he considers this hospital experience a strong asset since it allowed him to become familiar with the advanced stages of disease, and apply the often lifesaving therapies of allopathic medicine.

Always committed to deepening his knowledge, Dr. Leal completed several functional medicine courses and attended numerous lectures. He was preparing the ground for a future practice where he could use these tools for a more comprehensive evaluation of the body systems. In his personal view of medicine, Dr. Leal thinks that different modalities don’t need to be completely separated, provided they have solid foundations and contribute to supporting a physiological equilibrium. He is also conscious of the human psyche’s determinant role in our wellbeing, and believes this is frequently an overlooked factor in the healing process.

In 2018, Dr. Leal decided to return to Portugal and embrace a new personal project, aiming to help others to the best of his abilities. This was once the purpose of his deceased father, also a doctor. He considers it a privilege to follow his father’s example.