We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Meghan Nolan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Meghan, thanks for joining us 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?
I will never forget how my whole body lit up when I realized I had the opportunity to open my own practice. In one flash of light I saw it come to life and everything that it could be. This was circa December 2020 and the world was just starting to dip its toes back out from a period of deep hibernation and chaos. Luckily from a business standpoint, that meant office space was easy to come by. I was sitting down with a friend who told me about a room available to share with another massage therapist, in an area of town close to where I lived, highly affordable, set-up and ready to go. In Portland, OR, no place is too quirky for any place of business – my office would be in a large, spare room with a tiny lobby attached to the side of a historic Church. I was still fairly new to practicing acupuncture, but I knew an opportunity to step into a business with a certain degree of infrastructure and neighborhood community already built-in was something I couldn’t pass up.
The biggest challenge by far in those early days was figuring out a system for all of the operational, and technically unglamorous aspects of being in business. I was a one woman show covering everything from legally establishing my LLC, website design, marketing materials, insurance billing, accounting, social media – it made working on clinically complex cases with a patient seem easy. Getting that foundation down however, was I still believe to this day, the key to building a successful practice that could withstand fast paced growth and take on a high volume of patients. Starting out, I certainly tried to cut as many financial corners as I could to keep overhead costs down and ended up doing a lot of things manually especially when it came to scheduling, payments and record keeping which I quickly came to realize would not be sustainable – I surprised myself with the snowball effect of how all the little things add up! Looking back, I would have invested in more comprehensive software systems that would have streamlined more of my administrative duties and that’s definitely something I would encourage any new entrepreneur to take stock of. When you’re starting out and don’t have much business volume to keep track of, it’s hard to imagine that might ever be be something that takes on a life of its own – I say think big from the start and make sure you’ve got the foundation in place that can hold your growth even it’s beyond what you think you might ever need!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
From a young age, I witnessed the health crises of close family members, and was myself diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome at the age of 16. Following these experiences, I was determined to spend my lifetime studying all aspects of the human experience and how stress, emotions, injury, illness and somatics affect the body, which is how I encountered Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine.
Over decades of study and an attuned understanding of the body’s intricate web now inform my treatments to effectively meet patients where they are to help achieve freedom of movement and resilience in mind, body and spirit. I’m unique in the way I approach treatment as I combine both massage and acupuncture into every session so patients walk away feeling that they had some true hands-on care and time to be heard – something that the current Western medical model rarely offers. I hold advanced clinical training in both Japanese and orthopedic (dry needling/trigger point release) acupuncture techniques in addition to Eastern-based manual therapies including Tuina medical massage, cupping, gua sha, moxibusion and hot stone meridian therapy. While my capstone research project focused on neuromuscular repair with electro-acupuncture, I enjoy treating a variety of conditions from chronic pain, to digestive disorders, reproductive health, autoimmune disease and psycho-somatic regulation.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Perhaps a lesson I’m still unraveling are old, ingrained feelings about lack, scarcity and dangers of the unknown. I know this perhaps stems from strong ties to my immigrant grandparents who settled in New York after leaving southern Italy post WWII. They faced poverty, a language barrier and marginalization in a new world. To survive, they had to cling tightly to steady forms of income in the small portion of the city they knew. No one else from that side of my family had ever braved going into a solo business venture before me. I still work hard to remind myself that an abundance of opportunities are out there waiting for me, even if I can’t imagine how they might appear or how big they could get!
Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?
Meeting people where they are, knowing how to hold space and setting the tone that everyone is welcome to come exactly as they are without judgment. When people come to my office, often they are emotionally vulnerable and/or are in physical pain, and I take my position as someone who is sought out for healing very seriously. I do my best to be a validating, reassuring voice in providing non-biased, integrative care so my patients feel fully informed and empowered to take on an active role in their own healing process.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.meghanroseacu.com
- Instagram: @meghanrose.acu
