my frustration with the hospital system increased. I found that the system was NOT patient/family centered.  One example is the fact that we would awaken patients at 4:30 or 5:00 AM to draw blood or do and X-ray so these results could be available when the physician made rounds at 7:00 AM. This remains common practice today in most healthcare facilities. To whom does this practice really benefit? Certainly, not the patient who needs restful uninterrupted sleep. Additionally, I recognized the value of healthy nutrition and took note of the nutritionally depleted foods we were serving our patients. Even more distressing was the fact that commonly patients were served very inflammatory foods that increase cholesterol and blood sugar within days of having open heart surgery. I knew I had to do something different to fulfill my passion of healing the whole person.

I resigned my critical care Clinical Nurse Specialist position in August, 1996. In September, I listened to a tape series by Dr. Deepak Chopra, a renowned endocrinologist, with expertise in Quantum Physics. He suggested five steps to fulfilling your desires and dreams:

1.    Get into a meditative state and connect to God
2.    State your intention of what you would like to do
3.    Don’t be attached to how it’s going to happen
4.    Allow the Universe to handle the details
5.    The results are guaranteed.

I said “OK God, I want to change the healthcare system.” I named about 25 things that were just wrong in healthcare in my perception. Ironically many of these same issues (AND EVEN MORE) remain prevalent in our disease-care, profit driven system.

The following January, I received a call from one of my friends who told me about a program coming to Louisville. Nurses from the New York College of Holistic Health Education and Research had started a traveling nurse’s certificate program in Amma therapy and were traveling around the country to teach this work. Amma therapy is a form of Acupressure based on Traditional Chinese Medicine that includes manual therapy and massage techniques using the 12 major meridian channels. It is very holistic in nature and includes healthy nutrition, yoga, and tai chi. I knew this was an answer to my prayers and I completed the 2 year certificate program. Anneke Young, a protégé of Mrs. Tina Sohn, who brought Amma therapy to the United States, was our beloved teacher. In 1997, I started my own practice offering Amma therapy and a holistic nursing assessment. In 2000, I met three other practitioners (Dr. Slava Paskovich, a physician from the Ukraine, Eddie Campomonas, a physical therapist, and Amber Stone, PT assistant who was trained in massage, cranial sacral therapy and strain/counterstrain techniques), who were interested creating an integrative medicine center and together we started the Institute for Integrative Medicine. We worked together for 3 years. Life events ensued and Dr. Paskovich and Eddie Campomonas both relocated to different areas of the country.  I continued as the sole owner of Institute for Integrative Medicine.