Occupational and Environmental Medicine
Dr. Lauren Benning, DO, is finishing her third year of Occupational and Environmental Medicine residency at HealthPartners Minneapolis, Minnesota. Prior to switching to OEM, she completed two years of Family Medicine training, but found that the system pressures of primary care (e.g., high volume of patients with limited time, frequent circadian rhythm disruption with shift work, inpatient work during the COVID-19 pandemic) were not a great fit, which demonstrated to her the crucial impact of the work environment on her own health as a worker. Her interests in environmental health, occupational hazards, advocacy and public policy originated with her environmental science work as an undergrad at Duke University, osteopathic medical educational in a rural setting at the Campbell University Jerry M. Wallace School of Osteopathic Medicine in North Carolina, and experience as a medical student writing resolutions as part of the American Medical Association Medical Student Section. She is very interested in Total Worker Health, workplace health promotion strategies, and hazards unique to first responder work, with an interest in fostering wellness both in and outside of the workplace. She has spent time during residency working at the HealthPartners environmental exposure clinic with firefighters, police officers, and other workers suffering from long term effects of occupational diseases. She is also working on her certification in Lifestyle Medicine--with a focus on nutrition--following some significant success she had as a nutrition blogger in college, creating a low-carbohydrate E-cookbook on Amazon that became popular with people who had diabetes or were trying to lose weight.