My family wanted to have another doctor in the family after my grandfather died.  My father approached me in my late teens and asked if I ever thought about being a doctor.  At that moment I knew that I wanted to be a doctor that didn’t treat people with drugs or surgery.  My Dad laughed happily and said I would be a good doctor anyway.  I said, “I’m serious, I don’t want to treat people with drugs or surgery”.  I had never heard of such a doctor, and neither had anyone else that I knew.  During my pre-med courses at college, I talked with many people about the type of doctor I wanted to be; they were supportive but didn’t know what I was talking about.

Starting my Education

One day while I was walking across campus, a friend called to me.  She handed me a paper with the name “John Bastyr College of Naturopathic Medicine” written on it.  I felt a flash like lightening and shouted, “That’s it, I’m going to be a Naturopathic doctor!”  I’m grateful to her everyday for that note.

I finished my Biology/ Pre-med, interviewed at John Bastyr College of Naturopathic Medicine and was accepted.  Also, I joined the U.S. Army as a medic which helped pay the way to fulfill my dream.

I went to school with a great group of people at John Bastyr College of Naturopathic Medicine.  We worked hard, studied hard, and supported each other to get through the program and graduate.  I’m proud of my class, as they have truly contributed to the advancement of Naturopathic medicine, and still do. The year we graduated the college name changed to Bastyr University.

Opening my practice

I opened my first practice in the Medical Arts Building at Northwest Hospital.  I practiced there over a year before moving to my current office at 7201 5^th Avenue NE.

While at Northwest, I was invited by Bill Turska N.D. in Mist, Oregon to come and help him.  He was my first mentor.  He was an old-timey Naturopath that had a history of incredible cures.  I would work with him on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, and at my practice in Seattle on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.  One night when we had finished working with clients, Dr. Turska and I stayed up and talked for a long time into the night.  When I woke up the next morning, I felt different, like I was no longer a young Doc working with a mentor but two colleagues working together.  It wasn’t his words to me, it was something else.  He would talk about how he worked on patients through the ethers, and I think he worked on me.

My second mentor

My second mentor has been Dietrich Klinghardt M.D., PhD. who taught me Neural Therapy.  I spent two days a month for eight months working with Dr. Klinghardt, and continued training with him at intervals for over four years.  I vividly remember the first patient who came to me for Neural Therapy.  He was dying from diarrhea, loosing 15 pounds a week for the past 2 weeks, had seen many doctors, and nothing had helped.  I tested him and found that he had a problem root canal.  I sent him to a dentist, had the root canal treated, and the diarrhea stopped immediately.  From that moment I recognized how powerful a healing tool Neural Therapy could be in discovering the cause of disease.  I am grateful to Dr’s Turska and Klinghardt for their patience and mentorship, and for their willingness to pass on their experience to me.

When the student is ready the teacher arrives

The next phase of my training has been about doing my own inner work.  I have searched for a spiritual teacher in many traditions and finally found one, Sathya Sai Baba in India.  His words “All paths lead to the same God” got through to me and I was able to rest.

I went to the Northwest School of Healing in Bellevue, Washington which taught skills similar to Barbara Brennan’s school in New York.  The teacher, Pat (Alima) Hamilton, taught energy healing and the importance of working on myself as well as others.  Then I met John Boren.  He is a spiritual counselor and led me into the deepest, darkest, secret parts of myself in as kind and polite of a way as it can be possibly done.  I have been profoundly changed by the work we have done together.  I owe him my life.  I pray everyone has such fine skilled teachers as I have had in my life.  I pray that I do right by them with every breath I take, and every word I say; I offer it all to God.

I am grateful for my life.  I am grateful for this opportunity to serve as a Naturopathic Physician.  I am honored to serve as a doctor.