I didn’t start in functional medicine. Honestly—I didn’t even start in human medicine. I originally thought my path in healthcare would be veterinary medicine. But early on, I was exposed to emergency care, and something in me lit up. I was drawn to the chaos, the pressure, the adrenaline, the problem-solving—those moments where everything is moving fast and you have to think even faster. I loved it. It challenged me in a way nothing else had. But not long after, life hit me with a perspective shift I’ll never forget.

About six months into school, my grandmother passed away in a nursing home. And that experience changed the way I saw healthcare forever.

She wasn’t failed because people didn’t care. She was failed by a system that was overwhelmed, rushed, and stretched too thin to truly care for people the way they deserve. That reality stuck with me.

As I became a CNA, then a nurse, and eventually entered the ER, I saw the same story playing out over and over again.

Yes, emergency medicine taught me how to save lives. But it also taught me something most people never think about:

Very few people end up in the ER “out of nowhere.”

There is almost always a phase before the emergency—the months or years where the body is whispering before it starts screaming.

The fatigue. The brain fog. The weight gain. The bloating. The “normal” labs. The symptoms people are told to ignore until they get worse.

And I realized something:

I didn’t want to only meet people at the point of crisis. I wanted to help them understand what was happening before they got there.

That’s what led me to functional medicine.

Now, I combine my emergency medicine background with a root-cause approach to help people understand their bodies, recognize red flags earlier, and stop ignoring the warning signs. Because by the time someone reaches me in the ER, my job is to save their life—not build their health.

I can’t wait to meet you!

Dana