About Lotus

Lotus Integrative Healthcare utilizes the concept of holistic healing while utilizing both conventional medicine along with alternative approaches to facilitate wellness. Holistic medicine or holistic healing is not a particular method but a paradigm and a set of core values by which the practitioner views the Universe and the interconnectedness of all living beings and within ourselves.

Healing encompasses the totality of a person’s physical, emotional and spiritual well-being and is not only unique to, but measured by each individual.

All persons have an innate ability and capacity for self-healing. When our mind, body, spirit and associated energies are balanced and integrated we experience healing. It is my honor to serve as your healthcare provider to explore your unique needs and goals and find solutions that best support your total health and well-being.

My mission as a family nurse practitioner is to educate, support and empower clients of all ages to take responsibility for optimizing their own health. My background includes a previous history in animal medicine followed by over 20 years of experience in human healthcare including working as a nurse in cardiac telemetry, hospice and the emergency department. It didn’t take long in nursing to realize the present paradigm, based solely in traditional Western medicine, failed to acknowledge a mind-body connection and the interactions that exist between the components of an individual’s physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being. Many years ago, I began learning holistic modalities and became certified in integrative clinical aromatherapy, healing touch and became a licensed massage and bodywork therapist (LMBT) specializing in myofascial and neuromuscular therapy. My dissatisfaction grew with the medical system which both refused to recognize they had created a broken “sick system” that treated illnesses as separate from the whole, nor would they support or approve of non-traditional, non-pharmacological treatments. Instead, they labeled them as “quackery”. I strongly felt the need to offer patients both conventional medicine therapies but also the wisdom inherent in a wide variety of ethnobotanical remedies, indigenous and Eastern modalities that have been used for centuries. Ultimately, I knew I had to return to school in order to have the needed autonomy to care for patients in a way that was right in my soul.

After graduating from the Family Nurse Practitioner Program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2019, I worked as a nurse practitioner in traditional family medicine, occupational, internal medicine and transitional care management handling complex chronic diseases. I finally was able to realize my goal in what I believe is the best of both worlds, by providing Integrative Direct Primary Care. My greatest passion is offering my patients options that integrate both conventional medicine and evidence-based alternative therapies that address not just the physical symptoms, but the social, emotional and psychological needs contributing to, exacerbating illness or preventing self-healing. I am addicted to learning and currently enrolled in a 2.5-year Herbal Medicine Program as well as continuing more comprehensive education in the medicinal uses of cannabis, of which I am a certified Medical Cannabis Provider in the state of Virginia. I enjoy teaching people about the abundant natural medicines and edible plants all around us. There is nothing better than showing others first hand that God has given us the medicine that we need within us and in our own yard. It amazing how your perspective changes from seeing annoying or thorny weeds, to seeing friends who offer themselves as food and healing.

In my free time my favorite place to be is in the woods foraging for Southeast edible plants and mushrooms to harvest and prepare into medicine and food. I enjoy active activities outdoors like rock-climbing, mountain-biking or skateboarding. I also have one 21-yr old son who attends NCSU where he is pursuing a degree in Plant Biology and Biotechnology. I love all creatures great and small and have 2 adorable Ball Pythons, 7 birds and 2 cats.