Dr. Naisohn Arfai spent over two decades in emergency medicine, the last stretch of it in one of Philadelphia's busiest urban hospitals. A year ago, he had no longevity practice, no plan, and no idea the next twelve months would end with him founding Haya Health, a longevity practice in Miami, and graduating the Certified longevitydocs.™ (CLD) program. We sat down with him on graduation night to talk about what changed.
Dr. Naisohn Arfai, MD Founder, Haya Health · Certified longevitydocs.™ Graduate
Q: Take us back. When did you first get inspired to go into medicine?
It's an interesting story. I wanted to be a professional tennis player. Near the end of my junior year, right before I turned 18, I met someone who changed my life. He wasn't a medical doctor, he was an iconic figure who had worked on the world stage brokering peace. I admired him and followed his lead, and when it came time for me to choose a career, he encouraged me to go into medicine. I was surprised, but knowing my aspirations, he felt it would be the perfect fit.
I loved science, but more than anything I wanted to do something good for the world. Medicine was the nexus of bringing together science with humanitarianism and service. In my late teens and early twenties, I imagined a profession that was borderless, where I could go anywhere and be of service. I wanted to change the world. That's what drove me into medicine.
Q: What did you imagine your career would look like when you were in med school?
Med school for me was tough. It was about memorizing and regurgitating, and those years dampened my hope that medicine was going to be a way to change the world. It wasn't until I was out in the world applying medicine that I began to see how much it touches people's lives. I ended up becoming an emergency physician, and those early years were extremely dynamic. I was in a big urban hospital in Philadelphia, one of the murder capitals of the world. We saw trauma, gunshots, heart attacks, strokes, broken ankles, pneumonia, everything walked in through the door, and you had a window into humanity. That was what I had hoped for.
But I'm now over two decades in emergency medicine, and even early on I began to realize that people are getting sicker, decade after decade. Something we're doing isn't achieving what I think medicine's potential is, which is to make people healthy. Our mental models and our funding have fossilized around disease care and disease diagnosis, with so little emphasis and so few resources directed toward prevention and health optimization.
That's one of the things that attracted me so much to longevity medicine. I think it has the potential to transform not just healthcare but society, it's a window into how you release human capacity: people not only not catching disease, but becoming more energetic, sharper, more able to connect with each other. I think the field is opening up medicine again in a very profound way.
Q: When did longevity medicine first come up on your radar?
In a literal way, about three years ago, starting with Peter Attia's book Outlive. I've always read a lot, I was a literature major before medicine, and I've read great writers, science fiction, philosophers. One person who stayed with me is Shoghi Effendi, who wrote something in 1932 about a vision of the future of humanity: that as we globalize and build more peace in the world, we can channel our energy toward the realization of human potential. He named four things: the extermination of disease, the refinement and sharpening of the human brain, the raising of the standard of physical health, and the prolongation of human life. I think we're now in the early days of beginning to see that vision manifest. That was the first seedling in my mind.
When I came across David Luu and longevitydocs last year, I had no medical practice, nothing. I was an ER doctor, full time. This event had a profound impact on me, because at a traditional medical conference it's just doctors talking to one another, hyper-specialized and focused on day-to-day solutions. A space like this is revolutionary, because you have investors and business people and entrepreneurs sitting with you as a doctor, thinking together about a field that's emerging and rapidly transforming society.
The longevitydocs Cannes Summit represents what I had always longed for: a much more integrated, dialogical space where brilliant people exchange notes and insights across fields. It's also fun and joyful, not overly serious, in a beautiful setting. I'd describe that Summit as my launchpad into the world of longevity.
"Longevity medicine has the potential to transform not just healthcare but society, it's a window into how you release human capacity: people not only not catching disease, but becoming more energetic, sharper, more able to connect with each other. I think the field is opening up medicine again in a very profound way." Dr. Naisohn Arfai, MD
A few months later, at the end of October 2025, my wife and I just said, let's pull the trigger. I left the ER. I had nothing. I started trying to figure out how to build a longevity practice, working a few shifts here and there. It's taken a few months, but now things are really taking off.
Q: What's a key takeaway from the certification you can give to physicians who are thinking about getting into longevity medicine? Any advice you'd give them?
One of the themes today has been humility. Because it's such a new field, you need a humble posture of learning, you have to know that you don't know, and keep evolving. That's what's exciting about it. But you need a framework to approach longevity in a meaningful, systematic way, and the certification course gave me that in a remarkably robust way, more than I expected.
The course touches on the foundations of neuroscience and aging science, the historical roots of medicine across different cultures, all the way to the cutting edge of advanced therapeutics. It also introduces the business concepts you need, physicians are often the worst business people in the world, so having a curriculum that educates you in the science and medicine, but also gives you tools to think about how to build a practice and what kind of practice you want to build, is invaluable. I needed something to provide grounding, even while constantly trying to keep up with the advancements, the course created a great foundation.
There's one other aspect of moving from emergency medicine to longevity I'd want people who are contemplating this to hear. Many people in medicine are dissatisfied, patients are dissatisfied with the medical system, but doctors are also very unhappy for the most part. Many of my colleagues feel stuck in a system that isn't keeping up with advancements, driven by forces beyond the humanitarian impulse that drove many of us into medicine.
Now, having my own longevity practice, spending hours with a human being, understanding their story, walking with them on their health journey, not just their medication list but the quality of their relationships, their goals and aspirations, and helping shape a trajectory that leads to health span extension and real impact on their life, today has been therapeutic for me.
Being a longevity doctor, aside from applying what I'm learning to my own life, to my wife and my children, has been therapeutic in being able to offer this kind of care to people. That's why I think it has so much power for the future of medicine.
One year. That's the distance between an ER doctor with no longevity practice and a CLD graduate running his own. Dr. Arfai's story is the one this community exists to make possible.
The CLD program is open to licensed MDs, DOs, and MBBS physicians only. This physician-only enrollment keeps the curriculum at a clinical level appropriate for practicing doctors.
The CLD program is designed to be completed in 6 to 9 months. Physicians get access to the entire curriculum immediately upon enrollment and can move through it at their own pace.
The CLD curriculum covers over 100 hours of physician-only education across diagnostics, biomarkers, hormones, peptides, nutrition, exercise science, sleep, and cognitive health, along with the business and practice-building skills physicians need to launch a longevity practice.
From the ER to Longevity Medicine: Dr. Naisohn Arfai's Journey to Medicine
From the ER to Longevity Medicine: Dr. Naisohn Arfai's CLD Story
Dr. Naisohn Arfai spent twenty years in emergency medicine before a question he couldn't shake led him somewhere new. In June, he graduated from the Certified longevitydocs.™ program, and is now founder of his own practice, Haya Health, in Miami.
Background: 20+ years in emergency medicine, most recently in a major Philadelphia hospital
Credential: Certified longevitydocs.™ (CLD), graduated July 2026
Practice: Founder, Haya Health, Miami
Timeline: One year from first longevitydocs.™ Summit to CLD graduation and founding his own practice
Dr. Naisohn Arfai spent over two decades in emergency medicine, the last stretch of it in one of Philadelphia's busiest urban hospitals. A year ago, he had no longevity practice, no plan, and no idea the next twelve months would end with him founding Haya Health, a longevity practice in Miami, and graduating the Certified longevitydocs.™ (CLD) program. We sat down with him on graduation night to talk about what changed.
Q: Take us back. When did you first get inspired to go into medicine?
It's an interesting story. I wanted to be a professional tennis player. Near the end of my junior year, right before I turned 18, I met someone who changed my life. He wasn't a medical doctor, he was an iconic figure who had worked on the world stage brokering peace. I admired him and followed his lead, and when it came time for me to choose a career, he encouraged me to go into medicine. I was surprised, but knowing my aspirations, he felt it would be the perfect fit.
I loved science, but more than anything I wanted to do something good for the world. Medicine was the nexus of bringing together science with humanitarianism and service. In my late teens and early twenties, I imagined a profession that was borderless, where I could go anywhere and be of service. I wanted to change the world. That's what drove me into medicine.
Q: What did you imagine your career would look like when you were in med school?
Med school for me was tough. It was about memorizing and regurgitating, and those years dampened my hope that medicine was going to be a way to change the world. It wasn't until I was out in the world applying medicine that I began to see how much it touches people's lives. I ended up becoming an emergency physician, and those early years were extremely dynamic. I was in a big urban hospital in Philadelphia, one of the murder capitals of the world. We saw trauma, gunshots, heart attacks, strokes, broken ankles, pneumonia, everything walked in through the door, and you had a window into humanity. That was what I had hoped for.
But I'm now over two decades in emergency medicine, and even early on I began to realize that people are getting sicker, decade after decade. Something we're doing isn't achieving what I think medicine's potential is, which is to make people healthy. Our mental models and our funding have fossilized around disease care and disease diagnosis, with so little emphasis and so few resources directed toward prevention and health optimization.
That's one of the things that attracted me so much to longevity medicine. I think it has the potential to transform not just healthcare but society, it's a window into how you release human capacity: people not only not catching disease, but becoming more energetic, sharper, more able to connect with each other. I think the field is opening up medicine again in a very profound way.
Q: When did longevity medicine first come up on your radar?
In a literal way, about three years ago, starting with Peter Attia's book Outlive. I've always read a lot, I was a literature major before medicine, and I've read great writers, science fiction, philosophers. One person who stayed with me is Shoghi Effendi, who wrote something in 1932 about a vision of the future of humanity: that as we globalize and build more peace in the world, we can channel our energy toward the realization of human potential. He named four things: the extermination of disease, the refinement and sharpening of the human brain, the raising of the standard of physical health, and the prolongation of human life. I think we're now in the early days of beginning to see that vision manifest. That was the first seedling in my mind.
When I came across David Luu and longevitydocs last year, I had no medical practice, nothing. I was an ER doctor, full time. This event had a profound impact on me, because at a traditional medical conference it's just doctors talking to one another, hyper-specialized and focused on day-to-day solutions. A space like this is revolutionary, because you have investors and business people and entrepreneurs sitting with you as a doctor, thinking together about a field that's emerging and rapidly transforming society.
The longevitydocs Cannes Summit represents what I had always longed for: a much more integrated, dialogical space where brilliant people exchange notes and insights across fields. It's also fun and joyful, not overly serious, in a beautiful setting. I'd describe that Summit as my launchpad into the world of longevity.
A few months later, at the end of October 2025, my wife and I just said, let's pull the trigger. I left the ER. I had nothing. I started trying to figure out how to build a longevity practice, working a few shifts here and there. It's taken a few months, but now things are really taking off.
Q: What's a key takeaway from the certification you can give to physicians who are thinking about getting into longevity medicine? Any advice you'd give them?
One of the themes today has been humility. Because it's such a new field, you need a humble posture of learning, you have to know that you don't know, and keep evolving. That's what's exciting about it. But you need a framework to approach longevity in a meaningful, systematic way, and the certification course gave me that in a remarkably robust way, more than I expected.
The course touches on the foundations of neuroscience and aging science, the historical roots of medicine across different cultures, all the way to the cutting edge of advanced therapeutics. It also introduces the business concepts you need, physicians are often the worst business people in the world, so having a curriculum that educates you in the science and medicine, but also gives you tools to think about how to build a practice and what kind of practice you want to build, is invaluable. I needed something to provide grounding, even while constantly trying to keep up with the advancements, the course created a great foundation.
There's one other aspect of moving from emergency medicine to longevity I'd want people who are contemplating this to hear. Many people in medicine are dissatisfied, patients are dissatisfied with the medical system, but doctors are also very unhappy for the most part. Many of my colleagues feel stuck in a system that isn't keeping up with advancements, driven by forces beyond the humanitarian impulse that drove many of us into medicine.
Now, having my own longevity practice, spending hours with a human being, understanding their story, walking with them on their health journey, not just their medication list but the quality of their relationships, their goals and aspirations, and helping shape a trajectory that leads to health span extension and real impact on their life, today has been therapeutic for me.
Being a longevity doctor, aside from applying what I'm learning to my own life, to my wife and my children, has been therapeutic in being able to offer this kind of care to people. That's why I think it has so much power for the future of medicine.
Mentioned Haya Health · Peter Attia's Outlive · Shoghi Effendi · Certified longevitydocs.™ (CLD)
One year. That's the distance between an ER doctor with no longevity practice and a CLD graduate running his own. Dr. Arfai's story is the one this community exists to make possible.
Frequently Asked Questions About the CLD Program
What is the Certified longevitydocs (CLD) program?
The Certified longevitydocs.™ (CLD) program is the world's first physician-only credential in longevity medicine. It pairs a 100+ hour curriculum with a vetted peer community and Hippo, an AI learning assistant, all delivered as a single certification physicians can complete in 6 to 9 months.
Who can enroll in the CLD program?
The CLD program is open to licensed MDs, DOs, and MBBS physicians only. This physician-only enrollment keeps the curriculum at a clinical level appropriate for practicing doctors.
How long does it take to complete the CLD program?
The CLD program is designed to be completed in 6 to 9 months. Physicians get access to the entire curriculum immediately upon enrollment and can move through it at their own pace.
What does the CLD curriculum cover?
The CLD curriculum covers over 100 hours of physician-only education across diagnostics, biomarkers, hormones, peptides, nutrition, exercise science, sleep, and cognitive health, along with the business and practice-building skills physicians need to launch a longevity practice.
What do physicians receive after graduating the CLD program?
CLD graduates receive the Certified longevitydocs.™ credential, a verified digital badge, a listing in the longevitydocs.™ Global Directory, and ongoing access to a peer network of longevity-focused physicians and the longevitydocs.ai platform.
This article is published exclusively for licensed healthcare professionals. It is not intended for consumers or patients.
All content is for continuing medical education and professional information purposes. It reflects the personal experience and views of the physician interviewed and does not constitute medical advice, clinical recommendations, or treatment guidance for any individual patient.
This Q&A has been lightly edited for length and clarity from a recorded interview conducted at a longevitydocs.™ event.
By reading, you confirm you are a licensed healthcare professional and will apply this information within your clinical judgment, professional obligations, and applicable regulations.