I studied Psychology at the University of Texas and received BS in 1977. I worked in a Community Mental Health Center while working towards a masters degree and was deeply influenced by how often negative thoughts and feelings (worry, stress, anger) influenced physical health and wellness. I decided to attend medical school rather than pursue a PhD to further investigate what I was seeing. The busy-ness of family life and medical practice put my curiosity about this relationship on hold for several years. I revisited the association between stress and physical symptoms in the late 1990’s when I developed a persistent and very itchy rash that resisted treatment. Acupuncture had just become a licensed practice in Georgia and the idea of tapping into how the mind/body balance each other without counseling or medications was appealing to me. In 5 treatments, my rash of three months was gone and never returned. I was sold.

 Following that experience, I became more sensitive to the frustrations of my ER patients. Often, the blood tests, CT scans and EKGs would clearly diagnose a problem that required medication or surgery. When the studies all came back with normal results, or the prescribed treatments did not provide relief, my patients did not know where to turn. I decided to go back to school to provide for them an alternative.

 I completed an “Acupuncture for Physicians” course in 2007 and had privileges to practice added to my medical license and I began putting needles into everyone with a complaint or pain. I soon understood that the 300 hour course I had taken only scratched the surface of this elegant and complex for of healing and went back to school to get a Masters Degree from Southwest Acupuncture College in 2013.