Welcome to another week on the doctor nurse podcast.
I hope your each doing well, and enjoying your Journeys.
This week. On the podcast, we hear from
Leah gagan. She is a board certified adult,
primary care and functional medicine.
Nurse practitioner, who helps individuals overcome chronic
illness and Achieve Optimal Wellness, by naturally,
balancing the body restoring function, in alleviating pain at
her practice. Emergence Health, she Blends the
best of conventional and functional medicine to deliver
personalized care. She shares how she started her
business and what it takes for an NP to Branch out on her own.
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Hi, doctor, nurse podcast, welcome guys.
Today we have Leah gagan, And she is a board certified adult,
primary care, and functional medicine, nurse practitioner,
who owns her own business called emergence health.
And so, she's going to be talking guys about her journey.
How she's gotten gotten to the spot that she is today.
And we decided to talk to her because, again, I've had
requests for functional medicine nurse practitioner to come on
and share their Journeys. And so, I'm seeking them out
guys, that I happy to have her on today.
So Leah, welcome. Thanks for having me Santa,
yeah. Thanks for coming on.
So let's start off with kind of what your role is at your
current job and what it is that you do on a day-to-day basis.
So I am a primary care and functional medicine nurse
practitioner and most people would probably know what a
primary care nurse practitioners who are listening to this
podcast but functional medicine is probably a bit of a new term
and just to get started it is a route based approach to health
care that. Looks at how the Systems of your
body work to identify the root cause of disease.
So, I use a lot of Lifestyle treatments in my practice, in
addition to some conventional therapies, as well.
I like to blend both the conventional and functional
modalities in order to help people heal.
Mostly from chronic illness and I see people via Telehealth
really anywhere in the United States, but also, I do home
care. So, I'm licensed in Pennsylvania
and New York and will do physical exams.
And functional medicine appointments in people's homes.
Wow, what kind of patients are you seeing on a day-to-day
basis? So functional medicine is like,
a specialty in and of itself, but it's kind of being a master
of all. So I do see a lot of people who
have hormone imbalance issues like we were talking about
before PCOS, infertility problems.
I see a lot of people with digestive issues.
Yes, Crohn's disease. I see people who have a lot of
heavy. Overload that need help with
detoxing specifically from old. I see a lot of patients for and
autoimmunity. Because the the way that
conventional Healthcare treats autoimmunity is through
suppressing, the immune system and seems counterintuitive.
Yeah, yeah, instead of really like addressing why somebody is
having that autoimmune reaction, and I kind of Akin it to
somebody having like a smoke alarm and their house.
And basically conventional medicine for a Out of things is
just shutting off the smoke alarm.
It's trying to mask the symptoms that people are experiencing
instead of looking for the fire. So that's like the very basic
way of how I describe what I do is I don't just shut off the
alarm. I'm looking for that fire that
root cause of what is what is leading to you?
Not feeling well, I love this approach in health care because
it I feel like Western medicine is very good at being reactive.
You have a disease and then they're really good at, just
reacting to what? Here's the thanks or this is bit
into the problem more so than what I love about functional
medicine is I've been diving into this area of Health Care is
that you guys are way more interested in like you said
looking for the fire what's causing this instead of just
looking to fix it and I love that you're merging I can help
fix it but I also really want to dive into what's going on and so
I was looking through your website I saw that you do a ton
of testing very specific testing I'm assuming like Gut microbiome
type stuff. You're looking at people's
genetic makeup to getting that like that, that I owe
individuality that I want to has and really tailoring Health Care
to the person. Because again, I think we all
know this, there are genetic differences between people.
Every single person is different.
Could you touch on a little bit about what it is?
That kind of sets, functional medicine apart and that bio
individuality that you tailor your care to compared to
Conventional medicine. It's just kind of a one shoe
fits all which knows like this new shoe that fits everybody
model of healthcare. Could you kind of differentiate
that for my listeners? Yeah, absolutely.
We all went into healthcare because we wanted to help people
at the root, especially us nurses.
And at least when I peeked under the hood of working in a
hospital for a long time, I became frustrated because we
worked mostly on protocols that were determined from the top
down that every single person. If they were septic got XYZ
which of course for certain things like emergencies, I still
do believe very much in conventional medicine but
percent young framework does not work for chronic disease, which
is an epidemic here in the United States and around 80%.
They've done a study that 80% of chronic illness, can be healed,
through lifestyle, through diet, through exercise, through
nutrition. And yet, those are the things.
We were not trained in in school, you know, maybe you had
one nutrition class that was for one semester that was very
surface level but nothing that was really applied to Patient
Care. And the way that functional
medicine looks at Health Care, is we do still value evidence
based practice, which is very conventional, I guess in
perspective. But it's not the only thing that
we use to direct care. We use both Evidence-based,
practice provider expertise and experience.
And then also patient preference and how people want to delete
their care, delivered. What type of care do they want?
What is their life like and what will fit best into their
lifestyle versus the other way around?
And that's the aspect of the personalization that, yes, we
can do. Also, the advanced genetic
testing that's a whole new level of personalized care.
But even just at the surface, just asking people what they
want, Having enough time to really understand those persons
needs understand their history. We go all the way back to when
you were born, where you breast or bottle.
Well, were you a C-section baby or vaginal delivery?
Because all of those things, play a role in two, canoes
developed into today and what your individual risks are, and
what systems of your body could be out of balance, where should
we look first in terms of our investigation, through that
functional lens, And the average Primary Care visit here in the
u.s. is 15 minutes. Like, what can you get done in
15 minutes of time? I Rely very heavily on the
patient history. I really do believe that
patients know what is wrong with them.
They might just not know the medical terms or pathophysiology
behind it. And my job is to be almost like
a Rosetta Stone for them like hearing what they're saying
about their health and translating it into a way that
they I understand but also playing on my medical expertise.
I love that approach. That you're describing, it is so
it's it is I believe for example I'll just start with an example.
I had a patient just yesterday or two days ago in clinic, when
I was in clinic, I think was Friday, Thursday, and he had
described after getting an L agard injection for prostate
cancer that something's been off with his heart ever since.
And he's like, No One Believes Me.
And I just felt like this Man has been living in his body for
65 years. Who am I to tell him that?
This wasn't something that he was experiencing because I feel
like and this was the thing that I was getting from him and that
you're adequately describing that there's this disconnect
between providers, where we only look at this list of things.
And we say, well, if it's on the list and you can't be true, or
if it's not common, that it can't be true, it really
invalidates people. And I think it actually ends up
sending them into kind of an anxiety spin where they're just
like, well, then why is this happening Cause I I noticed that
this happened and this happened. And so I just feel like over
time, what we've done is we've created actually more anxiety by
not listening to people, by just kind of having that revolving
door of like, okay, get in, get out, get in, get out instead of
spending that time. I said, I spent so much time on
the phone with him that day. And at the end of the
conversation, he said, thank you so much for just believing as I
know. I can't fix it, but I believe
you. And it was just that statement
alone that I could tell curb the T that he was just like I know
things happen. Like I know you take things and
so things can happen and I said that's it.
Like unfortunately, that's that's Healthcare.
Is there side effects of the stuff that we do?
And so if you're experiencing this and this is true for you,
who am I to tell you that you're wrong?
And so that approach I think has been through my deep dive and
functional medicine and just in my own experience it.
So just realizing like sometimes you just need to be believed and
somebody just needs to go. Like I see you like.
I know that this is something you were.
Very easy. Do you think there's something
very therapeutic just in that right?
Like and so there have been studies on that to that the
patient provider relationship, feeling heard actually will
increase. Somebody's immune defenses that
their natural killer cells actually go up when they feel
like they have a strong relationship with their
provider. So there's healing listening,
and being heard even before you do any intervention, so you've
got four that I could tell. That that was that was
therapeutic for him. That alone.
Just calm the situation down, I was like, he's like if this is
all we do today, I was like nothing.
I've just been listening to him, you know like if that is like
that's all we do today. It's been a great day.
I was like, okay, again you see it in practice and you start to
kind of notice the themes in your.
Like, I don't think we're doing a good job here as providers.
And I know we don't have the time, right?
Because we've got our use that. We need to be balancing out.
We've got all these metrics that we need to hit but I really want
to dive into how you Into functional medicine from your
start. I know you would School.
You've got experience working in New York City.
And you've been Arena worked in a functional medicine, practice,
and then decided to go off on your own, and then kind of hit
some snags along the way, powered through.
I love these stories. So I'd love to kind of hear your
journey to this specific spot that you are at today if you
wouldn't mind sharing with my listeners.
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, everybody has a story
behind why they're doing what they're doing.
And for me, like, I saw I'll get us started with when I was
working in the emergency department and a really busy New
York City. ER, and this is exactly what
happened to me where you were nervous a nurse before.
And after my sister, and I was getting my masters in adult
primary care. And I went to NYU and they have
a pretty unique program in the sense that they have a
subspecialty for holistic medicine that you can actually
sort of Phi in through the yeah, through the university.
I started noticing this pattern that we're talking about you
know, these frequent flyers coming in.
An end as just patching up, whatever was going on with them,
to send them home to see them, come back again.
And I realized that I went into medicine in order to help people
heal. And although I was trying not to
do harm, I wasn't actually fixing the problems that people
are coming to see me for. And so, when I graduated, I had
this job in both primary care and functional medicine in a
private practice in Manhattan. And I was really able to hone a
lot of those skills of both. The standard primary care and
then also weaving in the functional medicine piece for
people. But the real transition Point
happened for me during the pandemic, because I feel like a
lot of people especially in healthcare have a pandemic
story. It was a very trying time to be
a provider and show up for your patience with so much
uncertainty about what covid-19 out how people heal from it.
What exactly happens in the body.
There's so much that we've learned over the past two years
about it since this moment. I meant, but whenever somebody
is met with a difficult situation, I feel like that's
when people's true character often comes out.
It's not when things are hunky-dory and you know,
everything's flowing well that you really get to see how
somebody shows up to difficult situations and quite candidly.
I just realized through the pandemic that the practice I was
working at was not aligned with my health care goals.
Nor did it really give me Integrity for what I was doing?
If I decided to stay there. R, because some of the practices
we were doing just didn't make me feel comfortable and I think
violated patient trust, which is first and foremost to any
patient provider relationship and care that you're delivering.
So it was really scary. I'm not going to lie, I didn't
have a plan when I quit my job and this was in May 2020, when
many people were getting laid off from their jobs.
It was scary because I had always known what my next step
was or I was always Hot like have another job lined up before
you leave a current one. So this is definitely out of
character for me, but I felt so strongly about it that I just
trusted in myself, that things would work out the way that they
were meant to do. And two years later, I feel
really grateful that I had the strength and the support to make
that decision. Because that was really the
foundation, through which I built my practice and the way
that I wanted to care for patients because too often
Especially as NP or dmps, you know, you're working in a
healthcare structure where you might not always be valued as a
equal provider to physicians in the healthcare team.
And one of my goals of practice is to work to the maximum
capacity of my degree and to show people value that through
the outcomes of the Care in which I deliver.
Yeah. And that was part of.
So, I Foundation of you have, what I built is of Lon.
Hang out. Yeah.
So I hope I knew two things from your story.
I've won the first one was, I know that your fiancé ended up
losing his job during the pandemic, which is always so
interesting that, like, at this moment that you decide I'm
launching out like I'll just done now.
You're he's husband-to-be is like struggling to find work and
you're just like, oh my gosh, I quit my job.
Like what am I doing? And there's always these moments
of like kind of testing you in the fire of like, how serious
are you? And you still stayed with your
conviction. And you were like, I can't do
this. I'm just interested.
I don't know if you can share but like what was going on at
this practice that you were just like I can't do this with a
prescribing medication that you were just like, I know this
isn't correct. Or were they just not treating
people appropriately? Or can you not say if it's can
say you can't say? But if you can say like this is
what was going on, I'd be interested to hear.
What were they doing? That, made you go like I can't
sleep at night knowing this stuff is going on.
Yeah, really good question. I think it goes down to just
broadly, some of the perspectives A lot of providers
have about health care that we were just talking about.
If you don't know the answer to something, do you say like, you
don't know or do you make up or project it back onto the
patient? Like, oh, there's nothing wrong,
it must be you. And I feel like I was talking
about that and especially with something like covid.
A lot of us were in the dark. At first, we didn't know what
the long-term side effects of it, where we didn't know how it
fully worked in the body and And some people felt comfortable,
like, I'm always someone of the belief that if I don't know
something, I will admit that. I don't even to my patients and
I will make it my goal to find out, answer to their question
and to investigate and to bring in other providers and
collaborate. In order to answer that question
fully to somebody but other people don't have that
perspective or that philosophy. And a lot of the patients that
come to see me fall into that category where they've seen many
specialists who Have followed their treatment protocol of
assessing them. So like for example, somebody
who has irritable bowel symptoms, like diarrhea
abdominal pain, they'll get a colonoscopy that's normal.
They'll have glutenin antibodies tested for celiac and their -.
And when all of those tests come back negative, the practitioner
just says, well, nothing's wrong with you, because all of my
testing was was normal instead of saying or holding that space,
that there's something that I I'm missing here or I'm not
looking at this in the right way and maybe I'm not the best fit
to do that. Here's another resource or
here's another connection. Yeah and I don't really know
what I'm putting it on the patient that the patient doesn't
you know there's nothing wrong with you but whatever you're
experiencing clearly is just not a big deal even though they're
like no it's affecting my quality of life.
Like I don't feel good, I'm having bloating I'm having all
these other symptoms. It goes back to kind of that
invalidating. And where people just kind of
sit there and they think, like, I must be losing my mind again,
long covid symptoms and I have family that's experienced long
covid. I had Cove it and just been like
I couldn't make my bed like I was struggling with like
shortness of breath and I was like I miss them like I work out
two or three times a week. Like I walk my kid and I was
like, I can't make my bed like I'm tired.
What is this? What is this covid thing?
Like, I've had colds and flus and been like, okay, I'm okay 34
days, but suppose that like the week, Mark and ten days in and
so, you're right. We didn't know.
And again, I just trusted my trusted like, okay, as long as
I'm not, you know, having cleared respiratory distress.
I'm going to keep just kind of gave myself, but my body time to
heal. But you see the CDC, say you
need 10 days to recover now, you need five days to recover.
And it's like, so, what is it like, what about if somebody
needs 10 days and you've only said five, like, who everyone
might need something different. I like what you said so
perfectly that we just don't know.
And instead of pretending like Well, then it must just be your
problem. You're just kind of like, we
don't know. And I'm willing to help Journey
with you. I'm willing to help find those
answers if they're there. I'll help look for them for you.
Even if you never find the answer, at least know that
someone's trying and they're not just writing them off, so,
that's exactly it. Yep.
And there's somebody who genuinely cares who's going to
show up to bat for you? Who's going to always be curious
and leverage their Network and and learn when you become a
provider, all Oh, it feels so satisfying to like have that
degree in your hand like your work does not end there.
If anything it's where it begins because your patients will help
inform you. Or tell you what you need to
continue to dive into and of in both your practice and the way
that you think and it's so much a two-way street at least with
the patients that I've partnered with where I help them.
And then they also really helped me to hone my skills and to to
learn Always Forever student. I Where would like to go?
Next is kind of seeing how you set up your practice because I
know that there might be nurse practitioners and nurses out
there, they're like, okay, well, maybe I want to do my own
practice, briefly explain, kind of how you set up your practice
and I know you said you'd left the private, you know, the
private group that you were with to go and make your own
business. But how did you navigate like
all like, starting your own practice, I just want to hear
about it. So thanks for listening to the
podcast. I hope you're enjoying the
conversation. I want to take a second and
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to check them out on the links in my show notes and let's get
back to the conversation. Sounds incorrect.
Yeah, absolutely. I'm happy to share, you know,
nurses, we learn a lot in school but we're never actually told or
trained about business. It even as an NP in a state,
that's green. In like a full practice
Authority State. We were never told any of these
steps that you need to take in order to set up your own
practice. So a lot of it was reaching out
to networks and leveraging. The people that I know and I
trust to help me and I'm fortunate that, I have three
immediate family members, who are entrepreneurs, not in the
healthcare space, but including my husband.
So I really heavily relied on them and their experience and
their support to help me build this.
And build it, very smartly and intentionally around my life and
not the other way around. So thinking about my girl,
something that was really important to me was flexibility
and being able to travel, being able to continue to learn and
having continuing communication and education, building a
network of support of Staff like collaborating with an
acupuncturist collaborating with naturopaths and chiropractors
people who I have received training and alternative
medicine but through a different lens than what I was looking at
with Healthcare so that I could provide my patients with that
truly holistic care and leverage that Network when I needed to
phone a friend, when I needed a question answered so that took a
lot of time and thoughtfulness, but I like to think that because
I invested that time at the start, it helped me be able to
scale and grow very thoughtfully into a Does that even as we've
grown in numbers I have over 100 patients.
Now enrolled in the practice after a year-and-a-half in
business that I'm still very true to those core beliefs of
how I wanted to build it. And that I feel good about that
both myself. And then the patients, you know
what they're expecting? That is so cool.
So give 100 patients. And then you have a practice
clearly you have a site that you work out of or is it on your
like personal property or do you like you own a building?
In that you see patients or do mostly just do tell health.
So I mostly see patients Telehealth.
I would say about 80% of my patients, see me strictly
virtually and then, the remaining percentage, I see via
home care. So, oh, that's right.
You go to that homes. The majority of my care is
really rooted in the history, especially the functional
medicine piece but you know physical exams virtually don't
really hold the same weight as doing them in person so I like
providing that option to patients to but especially
because of the environment. Post covid, or during the
pandemic, more and more people were really open to both
alternative medicine care, because I saw how our
conventional system was not able to accommodate covid and how a
lot of these old systems kind of fell apart through the pandemic,
and they felt more comfortable being seen in a private space.
Like, they're whore, virtually, because of that, that fear, at
least in the beginning of going into a practice and possibly
getting infected. So, I really tried to listen to
what people's needs were and built my practice around them
versus what I thought that they wanted, and that's one piece of
advice for anybody who wants to start a business.
Is know that there is demand, listen to the people that you
want to help. And then build based on that,
it'll save. You just a lot of time and
effort and make sure that what you're doing is something that
people will actually use and find Value in versus building
something and You know if you build it they will come is
definitely not something that really works in practice.
Although it sounds very nice. I heard there was a college that
instead of putting in sidewalks because you know you put in
sidewalks and you assume that people walk these paths, they
actually did not put in sidewalks and they let people
make the path and run the path down with how often that they
would just okay. We're just this is the easiest
way because people tend to kind of make their own paths and then
they put sidewalks and wherever they started noticing Missing
the, the dirt was starting to get worn down because they're
like, let's just let them show us where we need to put this on.
It's gotten that same perspective of like, okay, let
me figure out what you need and then let me Taylor might care to
what people want. Is that same philosophy?
And I think that's really wise. And so you said your big, big
Focus was flexibility. Being able to travel.
You still been able to scale and grow your practice, as you've
kept the main things, the main things.
Do you work? Monday through Friday, or you
just have certain appointments lot times, people slip into, and
you just kind of structure your day around the patients, getting
scheduled on, you know, getting or being put on the schedule
that you create approve. Yeah.
Good question. So I mostly work Monday through
Friday, but that's by choice. And then if I do want to take a
day off here there, or if something personal comes up, I
do have the flexibility to adjust my schedule, which is
really nice. But I see patients mostly in two
main ways. I see people fee-for-service.
I swear, they just if they want an appointment with me, they
sign up and they get charged for the amount of time that were
together. And I see the majority of my
patients under membership models, which are slightly
different than what we're used to with insurance model of care.
It's basically when people will pay for, they pay a monthly fee
that includes a fixed number of services that they have control
over when they use them. So these plans are annual plans,
where patients will get for Will my basic plan, Complete Care.
Has three and a half hours of visit time.
So patients can use that throughout the year and whatever
Cadence that they see fit versus me, telling them how often to
see me and it includes discounts and support for all of these
other pieces of healing that I found to be valuable.
So it includes discounts on things like acupuncture it
includes discounts on supplements and most of my plans
include some element of unlimited messaging with me as
well, because that was something that I realized was so important
to helping support people through chronic disease, is
knowing that they have a point person that they know, who
knows, their story that will be there on the other line, to help
them. Not somebody else that they need
to get up to speed. Every time they come in, they
see somebody different that that relationship is really important
for me to curate and I try and continue that that support with
the same people throughout that full year plan and the
beginning, when we talked about having that relationship with
One with somebody knowing them and again being able to piece
like okay so you might be more at risk for this because you
really weren't breastfed very long as an infant.
And so I know that this could be something that you're going to
struggle with or you were C-section born.
And so these are things that kids that are born via C-section
struggle with more because of that got not being colonized as
well when your first born and so you're more prone to celiac
disease you're more prone to type 1 diabetes.
We count on our environment to keep Us healthy that we just
think. Okay, we can sterilize
everything and we'll be fine and you find that is not the case.
You just you it's not the same but these things are designed
and made with a purposeful intention and that when we
disrupt that then we encounter that imbalance that occurs when
you when you disrupt the natural order of things if there's
emergencies or things that aren't happening, I'm a mom of a
C-section babies. I had no idea that C-section
impacted the rest of your like Like this but I'm thankful for
C-sections and so you have to balance it all out but just
realizing are we over using these therapies thinking that
they're convenient? And unfortunately this is the
way nature, designed it knowledge just comes right.
Knowing what happens in the body based on those choices and
sometimes they're not choices. Like for you, you didn't go into
a precipitous labor, like you had to have a C-section and
that's not something that you should be made to feel bad about
because a lot of things that happened to us in childhood are
out of our control. You know, it's there things that
have happened to us due to our environment or due to our
upbringing with our parents and part of I guess, helping people
heal is showing them that they do have control over what
happens from this point forward. And that, even though there are
risk factors associated with parts of their history, knowing
about it testing for it, and then doing targeted treatment
can make a world of difference throughout the Life Span, you
know? Ever like oh darn your past.
This point. There's a point of no return.
There's always something that you do to move the needle.
I didn't functional medicine, gives so much hope and I want
all my listeners, black brown, white asian, one to hear that
this is for you. It is not just some tiny sector
of the population that has access to this.
But like, again, reach out to functional medicine, providers,
look for nurse practitioners that are doing this stuff,
because I think more of us are starting to look at this model,
and Question, our role in healthcare when we're just
prolonging disease were watching.
People just get amputations for diabetes.
Were not really moving the needle and changing people's
outcomes. And we're just kind of believing
that your genes load the gun and fire the gun, and you can't stop
it. Whereas, when you really see
that, you know what, my gun might be loaded, but the things
in the choices that I make fire the gun, then maybe I can start
to Change things and this is so funny but it's for my kid
because he's missing certain bacteria icon it.
I do a probiotic. I do kimchi, I do sauerkraut.
I'm giving him fermented. Yeah, it's not because I know
definitively this is going to change anything but because I
understand that there is bacteria that if he's got a
couple strands, I'm trying to grow mom, you know?
So there's a little, you know, things that you can do that one
again, when you have that knowledge, like you said, you
have the power and you can do little things.
Things that I know my child. There is so funny.
Everyone laughs like your toddler eats kimchi.
I'm like, be so spicy kimchi. Just sits there with his
breakfast eating kimchi. So, yeah, I would have never
done that. Had I not delve into functional
medicine and figure out like, oh, like, there's little things
I can do. And yeah, maybe it doesn't
change anything, but at least, I feel like I have a hope and
that's what I love about functional medicine and I want
more people to hear and know about what it is that you're
doing that. You're getting people hope that
it's not game over. It's no.
Like, you've got you We've got some tools that can maybe help
have you had any, like you said, mentors anybody along the path?
That's really helped you as you have been coming into this new
role, as a nurse practitioner functional medicine and then
also as an entrepreneur the you'd like to shout out and just
say like this person helped me and they were vital and me
starting this whole thing definitely my three family
members who are entrepreneurs Have Been instrumental to
helping me. My husband is my business
partner now. So although Those things at the
time of starting it. Where stressful like, oh no, he
got furloughed from his job. What are we going to do?
It just made things even more clear that you want to partner
with the right people and it's really important who you place
your trust in to make sure that they also understand the value
of what you're building and what your intention behind it is and
I attribute a lot of My Success and just my ability to set this
up to people that I've had. In my family, who really know me
and believe in me and are willing to invest their time and
their their experience to share. So he's really been instrumental
and it really is a two-person partnership in so many ways,
although he's not client-facing, I wouldn't have known how to
build the back. End of the business
operationally, how to Market, how do you collect data, you
know, on different outcomes or on different demographics of
people? Now that I'm seeing how to
figure out pricing models for services, so that they're
profitable. I mean, it's really, really been
instrumental in helping me build, so that is one thing I
would recommend. People just be very wary of, and
take their time of if they do want to start their own practice
of finding those people that believe in you and Believe in
Your Vision who are willing to work with you to manifest that.
I just think that's really neat that you guys are partnering.
One another and that's power couple stuff, right?
Like, for the last question that I ask is, what is a piece of
advice that you would give a new nurse or nurse practitioner
starting off that. You wish, you would have known
at the start of your career because none of us really.
Again, like you said, we don't learn about business.
We don't know about these things, we come out of school
and we're pretty green and you look back at that person and who
you are today and you're so different.
You're so you've got different insecurities but also different
confidences that you didn't have back then.
So what's up That you would say to an ER nurse that you.
Do you want her to know starting off?
Yeah. I would recommend or something
that I wish that I knew was just to take every experience that
you have and just be observant of it try and go in without any
preconceived, notions, try and give yourself as much exposure
as possible to different areas in the healthcare field.
It's okay. If you don't know what you want
to do, I didn't know that this was going to be my path.
When Graduated from school, but I tried to just enter every
single opportunity or job that I had with just an open mind and
observing how I felt how patients responded to certain
care. And it's just as important to
recognize the things that you like about a job as it is to
recognize the things that you don't like.
And that's part of why I decided to build my own business at a
very rudimentary level. Is that at when I quit my job, I
knew the things that I wanted out of my career and I looked
for it. I looked for jobs but nothing
actually fit what I was looking for.
And so instead of just fitting myself into a box or taking
something that wouldn't have made me fully happy, I took the
harder Road of building it myself, which might not be the
journey for everybody. Sure.
But those are also the people that I want to bring into my
circle to the people who are genuinely curious, who want to
Make positive impact who maybe don't want to start things but
want to work for a company where they're not just seen as a
number or a replaceable person, but somebody who really has
value and is cared for. And that's kind of I guess what
I'm trying to call in with my practice in the people that I
partner with and that's also something that you shouldn't
compromise as a nurse that there are jobs out there that will
value you and that will invest in you and your growth just
being open and looking for them. I like that you're wanting to
call that to yourself in people that partner with you as well
because eventually as you grow you will need to hire other
nurse practitioners. You will need to bring people
onto your business. And I say this all the time,
like, you know, when you feel like your employer values you
and that you're part of a team and all the different things
that you're that you're talking about, you do work differently,
you move to Philly, you treat your patients differently.
And yeah, I think one of the things I'd like to ask you This
question came up as you were talking.
So you built this from the ground up, all by yourself.
Or did you take a crash course that like helped you build the
business? No course.
No, because you just feel a lot of it was just a ton of time and
research and something on the way of oh no like this is
actually how you set up a pllc in New York not this way.
Yeah yeah I just want to know that because I was thinking
about that you're talking. I was like did she really just
all by herself? No she Really did.
That is not all by myself are really at least the medical
parts of setting up the practice I did by myself but I really
couldn't have done it without the support of my team and of my
family truly. Yeah.
But yes I like that. You say that because no one is
ever self-made right. I think it's so important like
too much with social media. And with the way certain people
pitch their story, they don't give any credit to the people
that have helped them get there. And I don't want people to think
that I just emerged. To this level all by myself just
out of sheer luck a lot of it came from just grit and asking
the right questions to the right people and building slowly but
intentionally I agree with you I was actually thinking about that
for my podcast. I was like I can take no credit
for this because literally my whole podcast is talking to
other people like so like I could never take any credit for
anything that the doctor just popped as does ever the last
part of the interview. It's the rapid fire.
These you cannot prepare for you can Not study, these are just
five minutes of your pants. Are you ready?
Bring It On favorite holiday? Favorite holiday Christmas.
Know what I've recently found that I think about it to be like
a July 4th person. Like, really Christmas are
starting to compete a little bit like, July 4th is so much fun.
I don't know. I like that one a lot.
Okay, so tell me a little bit about a choro.
What's one Shore that you hate doing that?
If you could be like, I will pay for this forever.
Which word would it be laundry? I'm lucky that my husband does
the lon Most of the time, I will empty the dishwasher day after
day but the laundry. Mmm, scored.
And I like to ask. This works is very interesting
to me, people say, so what is something that you do to
distress as a functional medicine?
Provider, what is something that again we know stress is huge on
the body? Oh yes.
What do you tell like? So I have a unique living
situation during the pandemic. I moved into a home inside of a
Eight Park in Pennsylvania. So it's a historic home that
used to be a Farmstead that is owned by the government.
That now my husband and I are stewards of the land here, we
live on 23, Acres of property and we're in the middle of a
state park. So we've got a crease, you've
got hiking trails, we've got nature right, outside our door.
And that is just been fundamental to keeping me sane
while building this practice, being able to go outside my door
and here in nature and go on my way.
Ox and just really take it all in and unplug, did you grounding
walking outside. Barefoot connecting, all that
stuff, solutely my God. So we've got just all kinds of
Nature and I mean we were transplants from New York city.
So you can imagine there could be like a whole probably
hilarious documentary about our experience.
Here is like the hustle bustle to you or to like go over to the
state park with you know nobody around you for 3.
Miles is like a pretty big pin do.
Oh, of swindling swing, you know, from one to the other.
So it's about practicing What You Preach, right.
If I'm telling people to distress and to be in nature and
to focus on the more important things in life, it's important
for me to also value those things.
And to be a good example and it's a gift that keeps on giving
towards me and my relationship to and just the way that I'm
able to show up for other people, if I'm really taking
good care of myself and we will end on that note guys, check Out
Leah's page. I'll tag it in the show notes
below. Check out what she's doing and
in her social media stuff. I'll tag as well so you can see
her. And again we as nurses have so
many options and I love that you're focusing in on doing the
things that are good for your health teaching others that as
well. And then also prioritizing your
work to fit into your life, not your life to fit into your work.
And that you are just creating really good balance and creating
an example for us to go like be true to look what's inside of
you and move in that space and things will work out.
Like it's going to be okay. I just feel like there's a lot
of Peace in what you've done and it's really, really cool.
So, thank you for sharing. Thank you.
Thanks for coming on. And guys, don't forget to enjoy
the journey. Gee Mom, Dad.
I love you mama. So that's a wrap.
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