OUR VISION
PreKure is a social enterprise that exists to inspire the medical profession to become more focused on disease prevention rather than simply treating the symptoms. Our vision is to prevent chronic disease and extend the human health span by educating people about the science behind the medicine.
We do this by offering:
- Free lifestyle and prevention medicine resources
- Short courses for everyone
- Continuing Medical Education (CME) for health professionals
- Training, accreditation and professional development of health, nutrition and wellness coaches
Together we can change medicine. Prevention is cure. Lifestyle is medicine.
In 1948 the World Health Organisation (WHO) defined human health as:
‘A state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.’
And that's the reason PreKure exists.
OUR FACULTY
We are a team of internationally recognised health professionals who are highly educated in the science and practice of lifestyle medicine.
Professor Grant Schofield
Public Health
Grant is Director of The Centre for Human Potential at AUT and former Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Education in New Zealand. He is also the author of four best-selling books.
Learn more about Grant
Professor Julia Rucklidge
Clinical Psychology
Prof Clinical Psychology at University of Canterbury. Mental health & nutrition researcher. Co-author The Better Brain; TEDx & edX speaker.
Dr Caryn Zinn
Dietitian
Caryn is a New Zealand registered dietitian and academic at Auckland University of Technology. She has over 20 years of consulting experience as a dietitian and is the managing director of her nutrition and lifestyle consultancy practice.
Sophia Dawson
Registered Psychologist
Sophia has a passion for holistic wellbeing and is highly skilled in the use of ACT with her patients.
Learn more about Sophia
Dr Glen Davies
General Practice
Passionate GP in Taupo using lifestyle and prevention medicine to walk with his patients and community on their journeys to wellness.
Dr Lily Fraser
General Practice
Lily Fraser is a GP and Clinical Director at Turuki Healthcare in Mangere, South Auckland. She has a passion for low-carb nutrition and loves seeing people improve their health and wellbeing through lifestyle changes.
Dr Catherine Crofts
Pharmacist
Catherine has more than 20 years’ experience as a clinical pharmacist. She recently completed her PhD in the early diagnosis of metabolic disease focusing on lifestyle management. She lectures in Pharmacology at Auckland University of Technology.
Dr Louise Schofield
Behaviour Change
Louise has a PhD in Public Health and 15 years’ experience in the corporate wellbeing industry, developing behaviour change programs that achieve results. A successful entrepreneur and innovator, she is also the co-founder of PREKURE. Her mission is to change medicine to focus more on prevention, before the cure is needed.
Learn more about Louise
Sonya English
ICF qualified Coach & Registered Nurse
Masters of health practice and highly experienced critical care nurse in the acute treatment of people suffering from ill-health.
Learn more about Sonya
Dr Ed Timings
Chiropractor
Ed has 30 years of experience in the health field, including time in diabetic research, and his own demanding personal challenges. Through this, he has developed an approach to stress that utilises specific knowledge and inspired living. The result is a healthier, more productive life enriched with more fun.
Dr Desiree Dickerson
Neuroscientist & Clinical Psychologist
Desiree is a clinical psychologist with a doctorate in the neurodevelopment of mental health disorders. After working in research in New Zealand, Australia and Austria, she now lives in Spain and speaks internationally about brain health, cognitive performance, and wellbeing.
Ulrika Celsing
ICF Associate Certified Coach
One of our star Lead Coaches at PREKURE, Ulrika brings with her a wealth of Health Coaching experience and over 15 years experience in international leadership roles across different industries and scales of business.
“My strengths as a coach are my empathetic and inspiring nature combined with a systemic approach to getting results, challenging my clients to grow and develop.”
Dr Brad Hulcombe
Lead Coach
Brad is not only a highly experienced doctor practising as a GP in NSW, but is also out there at ground level embracing the art and practice of Health Coaching.
“Having seen first hand the burden of lifestyle related disease within the current health-care system, I’m truly passionate about the clear need for a shift in focus to lifestyle medicine as the answer to not only disease prevention but overall well-being.”
Erik van den Top
Lead Coach
Erik is a highly experienced leadership and health coach, functional wellness specialist and seasoned disrupter and entrepreneur.
He works in private practice where he combines coaching, lifestyle medicine and biofeedback to help people restore or attain their health and wellbeing.
Erik’s mission is to inspire systemic changes to pave the way for a transition to preventative health models.
Ree George
Assistant Coach
Ree is a PREKURE Certified Health Coach specialising in Mental Fitness and Addictive Behaviours with 20+ years experience in the Health & Wellbeing Industry – including Physiotherapy, Fitness, Mindfulness, Gratitude, Breathwork, Pilates and Yoga.
Ree believes that there is a new way of providing health & wellbeing services that will complement (and challenge) our current medical model.
Kent Johns
Assistant Coach
After a long and fulfilling 20-year career as both a journalist and sports broadcaster, Kent is now helping others get healthy as a PREKURE Certified Health Coach.
"As I researched ways to improve my own health, and the results spoke for themselves, it lit inside me a desire to help others do the same. I now truly value a good diet, exercise and quality sleep. I know these all really count towards a healthy life."
Angela Byelich
Assistant Coach
Angela is a PREKURE Certified Health Coach specialising in mental wellness. She supports those who are finding everyday life a struggle, working at the intersection of physical and mental wellbeing.
Jared Canons
Assistant Coach
Jared is a PREKURE Certified Health Coach working alongside Dr Lily Fraser to help people reverse their type 2 diabetes. He helps people to make lifestyle changes that work for them and their whanau.
A skilled chef, Jared runs weekly healthy cooking classes at Turuki Healthcare in Mangere. As a father of two tamarki he strives to be the best he can be and inspire others to do the same.
Kirsten Rose
Assistant Coach
Kirsten is a PREKURE Certified Health Coach and an experienced Physiotherapist. Over the course of her career, she has developed a passion for helping people to realise their potential for optimal health and performance. She has a special interest in the role of exercise for both physical and mental fitness. With a Master’s degree in Rehabilitation and extensive experience in using a holistic approach, Kirsten works with clients who want to achieve sustainable wellbeing and high performance in all facets of their life.
Amanda Balcombe
Assistant Coach
Amanda is a PREKURE Certified Health Coach with a special interest in burnout prevention and mental wellbeing. A successful Financial Adviser she experienced burnout in 2021 and it became her mission to heal not just herself but use her passion for health and connection to support other high achieving women regain their energy, confidence and enthusiasm for life.
Maja Paterson
Assistant Coach
Maja is a PREKURE Certified Health Coach and registered midwife. Her focus is on helping women who are experiencing fertility struggles. Her mission is to empower women to be in control of their fertility, break the taboo around women's health, and carve the future for the next generation.
Ashlee Sturme
Assistant Coach
Ashlee is a PREKURE Certified Health Coach & Mental Health Coach. Ashlee has a Master’s degree in writing and combines her interests to write wellbeing content for publications and other health coaches. Ashlee enjoys supporting new coaches with their training at PREKURE and is passionate about improving wellness and health outcomes in schools. She is a strong advocate for holistic wellbeing for our whanau in Aotearoa.
Lisa Burch
Addictions Coach
Lisa is a PREKURE Nutrition and Mental Health Coach, and Certified Alcohol Recovery Coach, specialising in addiction. Lisa is a lifelong learner and is passionate about the science behind coaching. She particularly enjoys working with people wanting to change their health “trajectory’ as they approach older age.
Josh Darby
Trauma Expert & Health Researcher
Josh is a peer supporter and health researcher, having undertaken a postgraduate pathway of violence and trauma studies within Fire and Emergency. He has over 17 years of experience on the front lines of serving as firefighter and assists to develop and embed psychological wellbeing initiatives within Fire and Emergency.
Allana Kaipo
Assistant Coach
Allana is a PREKURE Certified Health Coach with a postgraduate of psychology and she recently completed research in Pasifika mental health and spirituality.
She is passionate about helping people uncover their inner strength to gain control over their health. Having a particular interest in helping others to reverse their type 2 diabetes and overcome mental/emotional struggles, Allana understands the value of developing quality lifestyle habits.
OUR TEAM
Louise Schofield
Chief Executive Officer
Grant Schofield
Chief Science Officer
Donna Maxwell
Advisor
Blake Lough
Advisor
Dave Bailey
Advisor
Teressa Betty
Advisor
OUR CORE BELIEFS
PREKURE sees the new world of medicine as preventative, customer-centric, and future-focused. It is based on thriving, not just surviving. It’s a rapidly moving and exciting field that can, and will, deliver health—or, as we like to call it, a PREKURE —to those who need it most.
#PREKUREDiabetes #PREKUREHeartDisease #PREKUREDementia #PREKURECancer #PREKUREMentalHealth
We Need Lifestyle Prescriptions
We believe that prescribing lifestyle changes should be as easy as prescribing medication.
WE NEED HEALTH COACHES
We believe that health coaches are currently the missing link in healthcare. Health coaches will help people make lasting behavioural changes to turn back the tide of chronic disease.
We Need the Latest Research
We believe that all medical professionals should have easy access to the latest research in lifestyle medicine, including behavioural practice.
We need Constructive & open debate
We believe that constructive and open debate is the way forward and will ultimately lead to less confusion, not more.
We need to BREAK THROUGH THIS LIFESTYLE MEDICINE PAIN POINT
We believe in embracing medicine’s historical success in helping people live longer, healthier lives. We acknowledge that new knowledge and evidence always have the potential to create pain points, and we believe that we are at such a place now with lifestyle medicine.
We need to focus on the TANGATA WHAI ORA (PERSON SEEKING WELLNESS)
We believe in making the patient the centre of healthcare. We encourage full participation by the patient and their whānau/family. We encourage learning by doing, thus enabling a deeper appreciation of new treatment approaches via lifestyle changes.
OUR VALUES
We Care
We are all about Science and Evidence
We DELIVER OUTCOMES
We embrace change & progress
OUR WHY
PreKure is a social enterprise that exists to inspire the medical profession to become more focused on disease prevention. We believe in prevention before cure.
Today, we have a sickness system, not a health system. On average, we spend the last 15 years of our lives suffering from the complications of one of the big four chronic diseases: cancer, dementia, heart disease, or diabetes. But the problem is that we medicate the symptoms rather than treating the root cause of the disease.
In its 1948 constitution, the World Health Organisation (WHO) defined human health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.’
And they were right.
Yet today, 70 years later, most countries in the developed world spend very little on prevention.
The truth is, we spend billions on sickness and very little on health.
It’s time to tip the balance.
We simply cannot out-treat these diseases. We need to prevent them from occurring in the first place.
Lifestyle medicine is the medicine of the future. It is clinically sound and evidence-based. It is focused on tangata whai ora (person seeking wellness).
It is the answer to not just the human lifespan but, more importantly, the human health span.
Our hospitals are full of patients in need of a cure. Average life expectancy in the world’s developed countries is around 80 years for men and 83 for women. However, ‘healthy life expectancy’ is significantly lower, at 65 and 67 years respectively.
And what of these missing years?
On average, around 20% of our lives will be spent with a disability: a functional limitation that requires assistance. Although we live longer than our predecessors, we spend proportionally less of our lives in good health.
PreKure sees the new world of medicine as preventative, customer-centric, and future-focused. It is based on thriving, not just surviving. It’s a rapidly moving and exciting field that can, and will, deliver health—or, as we like to call it, a PreKure—to those who need it most.
To improve the population’s health we must pre-cure. We must prevent ill-health in the first place and optimise the healthcare system for overall hauora/wellbeing.
WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD?
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