About Stephanie El-Chakieh
Scientist, pharmacist, functional medicine practitioner, entrepreneur, traveler, health activist, yoga teacher, philanthrope, traveler, etc.
Professional experience and journey
Owner of a Doctorate in Pharmacy, Stephanie pursued her education to complete a Master’s degree in advanced pharmacotherapy, graduating from the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Montreal. Since her graduation, Stephanie has welcomed and thrived upon new challenges.
Having now practiced in over sixteen hospitals and many retail pharmacies in Quebec, Stephanie has become renowned for her clinical judgment and expertise. She is also a speaker and consultant for various international companies within the health sector. Stephanie was also on the board of Pharmacists Without Borders Canada and is a mentor for several entrepreneurs.
Embracing change and technology, Stephanie started HealthyVoyage, a startup innovating in the field of travel health and medicine. The startup was challenging, and COVID-19 hit, which impacted its activities. After numerous startup challenges, Stephanie decided to pause the activities of HealthyVoyage, and wrote The Thin Lines, an entrepreneur’s guide to avoiding potential mistakes and building self-worth.
Following her first startup journey, Stephanie took a trip to Portugal to reconnect with herself. During that trip, Stephanie experienced a frustrating acne flare-up which was the turning point of her professional pivot toward integrative and functional medicine. As a pharmacist, she had first-hand knowledge and access to every new drug on the market, and she tried them all with no results. She consulted countless healthcare professionals and was repeatedly told that diet had no impact on acne. Once she dived into personal research on nutrition, she finally uncovered the many types and causes of acne and found a solution. Her findings will be shared in her upcoming book on acne. Following this experience, Stephanie discovered a skill and passion for science investigation. She is relentless in her pursuit to find truth. Stephanie is now an independent researcher and founder of Truence, a nutraceutical and skincare product line you can trust.
Stephanie is also a certified yoga teacher and wellness advocate.
Stephanie was also on the board of Pharmacists Without Borders Canada for almost 3 years. Please donate if you can.
My Beliefs
I question everything. I don’t necessarily have the conventional pharmacy or medical beliefs or mindset. I believe we live in a society that wants quick fixes, over-consumes, and does not really treat underlying causes. (I’m generalizing). We prescribe medication and treatments for diseases of unknown cause.
I am also fascinated by the power of influence, unconscious biases, psychology, and deep understanding of the human being. I’m an independent researcher who does literature reviews on different topics of interest for my own knowledge and understanding.
I value prevention over treatment. I also believe food is our best medicine. Feel free to reach out to share your thoughts!
Enjoy.
HealthyVoyage story
FROM AN IDEA —> TO A GLOBAL IMPACTHealthyVoyage
HealthyVoyage is currently closed considering the current pandemic - COVID-19.
I’m an advocate for change and improvement. Many systems still function the same old way and have not adapted to our society’s needs. HealthyVoyage was purposely driven by a core desire to help, change, and improve. I believe prevention is key. For travels, but also for everything else in life. While many medications save lives, there is not necessarily always the answer. A quick fix does not fix the problem but is often a patch for the underlying cause. Sometimes a simple piece of advice can save your life.
At HealthyVoyage, we help you prevent, make sure you have what you need in case you encounter health problems. We want you to enjoy and bring back positive and healthy memories. We’ll guide you every step of the way because we care.
In my upcoming book, I share the challenges, lessons, and wisdom I have gained throughout my experience. Click here to be informed of the launch!
As a healthcare professional, I tend to be over precautious. When traveling, I have a tendency to bring every possible medication ‘’just in case’’. I spend hours making sure that I have the appropriate vaccines depending on where I am going and so on.
As I accumulated stamps in my passport and made great connections with people around the globe, I realized that the average traveler was not nearly as prepared nor informed of the precautions that needed be taken. It struck me the most when I visited India for a yoga and meditation retreat, which, by the way, was one of the most enriching experiences of my life - I highly recommend it. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case for everyone, as more than half of the attendees got sick. Many got fever, and others some digestive problems (I’ll spare you the details). Over the course of the retreat, word got around that I was a pharmacist, and many came to me for help and pharmaceutical advice. The experience made me realize that the world’s healthcare system was lacking a crucial component: general population awareness concerning prevention and travel health.
Indeed, traveling to certain areas of the world can require taking numerous health precautions such as vaccines, pills for malaria prevention, antibiotics for treating traveler’s diarrhea, pills for allergies, headaches and/or fever, and so on... overwhelmed? Well, you are not the only one! Unfortunately, most people aren’t aware that preparing for a trip is so important. This is the reason that I decided to create a system that would allow me to share my passion for travel, as well as my pharmaceutical expertise. I believe that we all need to work together in order to increase awareness and help every traveler prepare appropriately for their trip.
My passion, my travel experiences and my expertise allowed me to pivot my career towards travel health and found HealthyVoyage, your virtual travel health services.
- Stephanie E., founder