My professional life has been a bit of a windy road to say the least. I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in Recreation Administration and Leisure Studies with the intent to run a summer camp, preferably for children with disabilities. My first job after college was in a Recreation Center and while I enjoyed it, I was craving more intellectual stimulation. I perused the community college course list hoping for a class on reupholstering or refinishing furniture, but the only one available was Emergency Medical Technician. As a life-long learner, I decided it couldn’t hurt to have some medical skills. That decision changed my life.

I joined the class and dove into each lesson with fervor. Soon after, I left my job at the Parks and Recreation Department and was working in a doctor’s office taking post-baccalaureate classes to go back to Medical School. Medical School at The Ohio State University College of Medicine was fantastic and I LOVED learning about the human body and seeing patients. I started a Pediatrics residency which was not surprising to anyone who knew me. After three years of residency, I chose to stay at Nationwide Children’s Hospital as a Hospitalist Attending., a job I kept for over 10 years. During my career there, I won numerous awards for teaching residents and medical students, definitely a highlight of working in academic medicine. But, as the years passed, I found myself missing the ability to practice medicine and treat patients the way I wanted – instead having to follow policies and protocols rolled out by a large medical system. My days were filled with useless meetings, tons of paperwork, and very little actual patient care. I was drowning in the workload and overnights of clicking buttons in a window-less room to get insurance to pay for care that I sometimes found suboptimal.  But, I had children to support and a mortgage to pay and no idea if any other position would be any better. Finally, I had had enough and I decided to do something amazingly risky!

I thought long and hard about what would provide the best care for patients and how I could spend more time talking with and examining patients instead of clicking buttons on a computer. In March 2023, I opened the first Pediatric Concierge practice in Central Ohio. Starting my own business was not easy and I reached out to a lot of people for help, but it felt freeing to finally be able to take a two hour history when needed and give out my cell phone number so people could call on Friday evening which is inevitably when all children get ill! After all these years, I could finally improve patient’s lives and save their sanity! My patient panel is small and I know all my patients very well – including most of their birthdays by heart. Patient’s parents become friends and the result is a beautiful relationship where health and medicine are intertwined and children receive real-time outstanding care!

In starting Roots & Wings Pediatrics, I wanted to have some other medical and recreational providers nearby as I didn’t want to practice in a silo and knew I would miss the team aspect of practicing at a larger facility. So, I recruited some of the best people I knew from multiple medical systems and neighborhood programs and created the Be Well Collective – a group of female owned businesses designed to support families in all stages of life. The Be Well has Physical Therapists for adults and children, Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, Lactation Consultants, Mental Health care for adults and children, music programs, yoga programs, toddler cooking classes, art classes, sensory bin classes, classes for first-time grandparents, and more collaboration than I have ever seen in any other facility in my life. All of these services are offered under the same roof making a truly family-centered home for medical and recreational needs.