"The love, affection and respect I hold for everything that surrounds me, is what has shaped me as a husband, father and doctor."
When I look back on my childhood, apart from all the normal ups and downs of life, one very important experience always stands out. An experience that has shaped me from the beginning and still guides me in all that I do today and what I want to pass on to others.
It is the love, affection and respect I hold for everything that surrounds me - my family, my friends, the people I meet every day, nature and my deep and unshakable faith.
The eldest of three, I was brought up to have strong moral and ethical principles from the very beginning. Coming from German and Greek heritage, I learned to question, think logically and act responsibly.
"I've remained
optimistic, despite the odds."
I’ve had my fair share of failures, which is all part of the learning curve of life, but I never allowed myself to become defeated.
I tried to see every challenge or setback as a chance to learn more about myself and lean into my strengths in order to find a new path.
One of these strengths was my music.
“The art of music relies entirely on listening to the story and emotions in each piece, which is similar to how a physician listens to a patient’s narrative and emotions.”
Pamela Chen, Harvard Medical School
"Before I was a doctor I was a musician."
Music continues to be an important companion and source of peace, strength, creativity and inspiration in my life. It serves as a creative and emotional outlet for me and allows me to integrate these artistic skills and practices into medicine so I can hear patients better and collaborate more effectively with them.
After graduating, I found it difficult to find my way at times, because sometimes reality doesn't look the way you want it to.
As a doctor, my passion was to make a difference. To lend a helping hand, alleviate suffering and generally contribute to improving people's lives and, if possible, to heal them.
I always felt that more could be done, that something was missing, and I started to question my approach and practice.
Yes, I was saving lives, diagnosing diseases, treating patients successfully and even curing them. But more and more I felt that I was just scratching the surface - treating symptoms and then seeing patients again and again for the same things.
I could see how their illnesses were taking over their whole lives. The stress on their families as they tried to juggle everything.The fear, the loneliness, the feeling of being shut out of life.
"I knew that I had to find a better way to practice medicine, for myself and for my patients."
And that's when I found Biological Medicine.
Suddenly everything made sense. I was treating the root causes, helping patients heal and thrive. As a team, we were able to develop approaches and therapies that made a real difference to the lives of our patients.
But there was something else: I felt fulfilled again in my role as a doctor. I could finally practise the healing art of medicine as it was intended from the beginning.
"But the story doesn't stop here..."
Together with my wife Dr. Joanne Vogiatzis, I took another step.
In 2020, we founded Vogiatzis BioLogic, with a mission to make Biological Medicine accessible and affordable to everyone.
Opportunities arise with every new connection, and we look forward to making new connections so we can implement fresh ideas for the cultivation of a holistic medicine that not only meets the needs of every individual, but also the needs of our society and our planet - our common home.
Ioannis, Dr. V
Joanne Vogiatzis, MD
"I wanted to make the world a better place."
Born in Northern Ireland, the eldest of five children, I had a happy upbringing which was enhanced by the close family and community ties that surrounded me. My desire to become a doctor was not based on a significant life event, but instead, it came from a burning desire I had to relieve suffering. I wanted to make the world a better place - as corny as that seems.
And try I did. Everything from charity cake sales, shoebox appeals for children at Christmas, food packages to the elderly, even going door to door in the pouring rain with my mum to collect sponsorship money for yet another cause. I was always happiest when I was serving others, trying to make a difference.
As a teenager I volunteered at the local Multiple Sclerosis support group and nursing home, but mostly I listened. Time and again I was humbled by the strength they displayed in the face of their daily struggles, even when they couldn’t see it themselves.
I was starting to get a more realistic view of the far reaching impacts of a deterioration in health or function.
I could see how easy it would be to start feeling cut off from the normal activities of daily life. But what could I do?
"It turns out it's the small things that matter most - people just want to be seen, heard and understood."
The one thing I had was time, and this I could give freely. That's how I ended up leading an outreach group at a homeless shelter.
The residents were suspicious at first and couldn’t understand why I would give up part of my weekend to sit with them as they watched TV, but over time the barriers came down and we chatted about life and everything in between.
Once we hired a minibus and went to the beach. Before we knew it, one of the men ran into the water in the only pair of clothes he owned. He was from the city and had never seen the sea before.
To see the huge grin on his face as he came out, dripping wet and freezing cold, confirmed to me that we were doing something good, something real. We were connecting at the human level.
And I wanted to do even more.
So I decided to become a doctor.
"But it wasn't all plain sailing."
Like a lot of things in life, sometimes things don't work out as planned.
I didn’t get accepted into medical school first time around.
That could have been the end of the story, but fast forward four years and I had completed a Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences with honours, and when the opportunity came around again, I was ready.
Like most young doctors, the thrill of emergencies pulled me in initially, but this was short-lived. Instead, I thrived on being part of those lightbulb moments when everything clicked into place for someone, or when I saw how the long-term changes someone made managed to turn their whole family’s life around.
When I became a GP, I had a much more intimate understanding of the daily struggles my patients faced, but suddenly my trusty doctor's toolkit felt inadequate.
"I felt out of my depth."
These were issues that couldn’t just be swept away with medication or surgery. They were engrained in their lives and their family's lives and had taken time to evolve, and would therefore need a different approach entirely.
I'll always remember a patient who came with chronic and severe facial pain. He was on all the drugs, and then some. But worse - he was pinning all his hope on me and there was nothing more I could do. I felt so helpless.
Not for the first time, I felt out of my depth.
That's when it hit me.
I’d done the work, sat all the exams, reached the end and realised that I was in a job I didn’t like.
Was this it?
"Something had to give."
So the whole family moved to Switzerland!
Not the usual response I know, but I needed to take a stand. I no longer believed in the value of what I was doing.
I wanted to do more.
Switzerland gave me the space to breathe. I took some time out and had our third child, but then I could feel myself being slowly drawn in again when I saw what Biological Medicine could do.
My spark was back. My desire to be a doctor had returned, and so I got to work and started learning everything I could about Biological Medicine, as I knew it would make a real difference to people's lives.
"For the first time that I can remember, everybody has something to say about health."
It would have been easy to stay in Switzerland, but that wasn’t the path we were meant to follow.
In August 2020 we said goodbye and made the epic road trip to Corfu in Greece, in between border lockdowns. Who on earth emigrates during a pandemic!
Although the journey has been far from smooth, the rewards have been great. We've reconnected to our Greek roots and we spend more time together as a family, which, in the turmoil of this past year has been a blessing.
This time spent together with the kids has really hammered home what is important in life. They make me want to be better and do more.
There’s so much suffering in the world right now and our children are caught up in it too. For the first time that I can remember, everybody has something to say about health.
But for too long they have been failed by a society that didn’t know what health was. Left to try and figure it out themselves. With the focus on what they can’t do rather than on what they can.
It was time. Vogiatzis BioLogic was born.
"I've always tried to be the author of my own story and now I want to help others rewrite theirs."
I've discovered many things along the way, and what I KNOW is that every choice we make has an impact. On our lives and the lives of others.
When it comes to health, there's always room to do more. It's never too late. That's because health is not an endpoint that needs to be reached, it's a dynamic and ever changing process that requires different things at different times. And this is what hands the power back to us. We can make our thoughts, actions and responses count.
I want to pass on my thoughts and what I've learnt, to you and your family, and make thinking about health less stressful, less confusing - less of a chore.
I've seen the transformation that Biological Medicine has had in own family's life and now I want to help you see the transformation in yours.
Taking ownership of your health and having the confidence to make informed health choices that are right for you, WILL turn your life around.
Even better, when we combine our efforts and connect with others, we can amplify our results.
That's why I look forward to collaborating with others, so together we can make the world a kinder, healthier and better place.
Let the next chapter begin.
Joanne, Dr. V
When I’m not trying to right the wrongs of the world, I’m a wife and a mum and I love to hang out with my boys – my favourite people.
If I ever have a spare moment alone, you’ll find me curled up with a good book and a cat or two, or at the beach – my second home.
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