My journey began at a major cardiac institute in 2006, where I spent nearly a decade as a Registered Nurse working in the Coronary ICU. Medicine at the pace of adrenaline: chest compressions, drips titrated by the minute, families in the worst moment of their lives. I loved that work. And I started noticing something I couldn't stop noticing.

Many of the patients we were saving in crisis had spent years with signs no one had connected. Heart attacks that could have been risk-stratified a decade earlier. Metabolic disease that had been quietly building. 

After becoming a Nurse Practitioner in 2015, I worked in acute care rapid-access and then Internal Medicine for nearly six years. Now I was the prescriber. Chronic disease being managed rather than reversed. Boxes to check when time didn't allow for anything else. I was tired of treating sick people. I wanted to help people be healthy, and the model I was working in didn't have room for that.

Motivated by a desire to shift from reactive to proactive, I transitioned to a private cardiac and lifestyle clinic, emphasizing early detection, risk reduction, and targeted lifestyle interventions. This inspired me to pursue training with The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM).

When I later spent two years conducting adult ADHD assessments, I saw the same pattern from a different angle. Prescription stimulants were often the answer being sought, and often provided. But the real story was usually upstream: sleep, hormones, gut health, chronic stress. The easy solution isn't always the right one.

Most recently, I practiced within an integrative, longevity-focused clinic, where the whole model was built around helping people build health, not just manage sickness. It confirmed exactly the kind of medicine I wanted to practice, and pointed toward exactly the kind of practice I wanted to build. I've since completed the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) certification program and earned the Functional Medicine Certified Professional–Medical (FMCP-M™) designation, formalizing that foundation.

Wholehearted Health is what all of that has been quietly building toward, even when I didn't have the words for it yet.