We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jennifer Shyu a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jennifer, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about how you went about setting up your own practice and if you have any advice for professionals who might be considering starting their own?

Starting your own business will always be a challenge. There are a lot of mixed feelings, a lot of fear, insecurities, voices in your head that say something is going to go wrong, and maybe those around you will say the same too.

But this will always happen with everything, with any important decision that you are going to make in your life, you are going to have these type of feelings and it is normal. Don’t let all the negative situations, comments or feeling get you paralyzed. Fear paralyze people.

When everything is organized, when you have a plan, structure and you are clear about what you want you just go for it no matter what people say or the obstacles you have in that process.

You will always have difficult situations, don’t let them get you down, just take the best or it, remember is a learning process.

Also and the most important thing for me is that if what you are working for gives peace in your heart, then go for it, and do not doubt that with the day-to-day work you will get there, you will see your dream come true.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

For all those new readers, here is a bit about me and my story. I was a General physician when I first moved from Colombia to United States almost 13 years ago.

When I first got here my dream was to be the best Plastic Surgeon, but with the years everything changed. As soon as I started working in hospitals things changed.

Why? Because I saw that the patient needed a little bit more than just medication and treatment. I started  asking myself a lot of questions such as; do I as a physician, really know what the patient is feeling? What about mental health? Are they feeling fine emotionally? What if their emotions are not letting their body heal? And like this a thousand more things came into my mind.

I was very anxious and curious about what else I could do to help my patients and to help them from having 15 different types of medication to al least less than 10 to start the process.

With all that experience I found the option to do a Master in Oriental Medicine. The first trimester was hard, I was not in my comfort zone, and that’s what I needed in that time.

During the 3 years of my Masters everything that I was getting anxious and curious for while working at the hospital started to make sense. I learned that prevention and lifestyle where the key, and that was the first thing I wanted to give my patients.

Nowadays that is what I do, I try to educate my patients of the importance of a healthy lifestyle. Also treat them with non invasive treatment like acupuncture, homeopathy and most importantly with good nutrition.

In my practice you will experience treatment for every disease (acute or chronic) with acupuncture, cupping, homeopathy, nutrition and herbal medicine.

Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?

Definitely yes, I will choose to be a Doctor again. It’s my passion and what I really love and enjoy doing.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

Not just in my field, I think that discipline and consistency is the key for everything in life. When you work hard for what you want, little by little you start building what will be your empire in the future.

Have faith and trust in the process, trust in yourself and turn all the negative into positive thoughts always.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Jen_shyumd

Image Credits
Gerardo Briceño