I graduated medical school in 2011, residency in 2015, but I was a healer long before that. A lot of us are. We're just not all doctors. The stylist or the bartender who listens to your problems, the mom who knows when this isn't just another stomach ache her child's having, the nurse who calls the grumpy doctor at home because she knows something isn't right, the musician whose song gets you through that awful breakup, the teacher who made school your safe place when home wasn't. Not all healers are doctors and not all doctors are healers.

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Although I only treat mental health and addictions, I was trained up by old school family medicine docs who taught me the art of medicine. Take your time, let your patients teach you, always remember mothers know their kids, floor nurses know your patients, and patients know their bodies. Be curious. 90% of diagnosis is the history you take from the patient, tests and exam are only 10%. Be willing to admit when you're wrong or you don't know. Trust your intuition. We are not here to fix patients; the body wants to heal itself and we are just helping it along the way. Love what you do, it's a privilege to have a patient trust you in their most vulnerable moments.  ​

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I've been treating mental health and addictions since finishing my training in 2015. Unlike a therapist, I'm able to prescribe medications. Unlike a psychiatrist, I can treat the medical side of mental health. And unlike a family doc, I have 30 to 90 minutes to spend with my patients focused solely on mental health and addictions. 

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I moved to Canada in 2024 from the US. I'd had a practice there which I very sadly left behind. I got a job in Cape Breton and didn't think I'd ever have my own practice again, but in the winter of 2026 I felt the call. Before I even knew what form it would take, I decided where it would be and that it would be called The Cottage. It would be warm and nurturing and focused on healing and joy, not just treating diagnoses. And it would be by the sea, a place where salt air and crashing waves help to heal. 

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But why the witch stuff? Because for centuries, modern medicine tried, convicted and killed female healers as witches to make way for their own system. Witch is simply another word for women who cause trouble for the powerful. Healers were found guilty based on physician testimony that they had healed patients the physician couldn't (applying leeches was science but using digitalis plant to calm tachycardia was magic), that they had used plants to decrease women's labor pains (we see the long lasting effects of this same mindset today as women's pain is still not taken as seriously by doctors as men's), that they had treated their fellow peasants when only the rich deserved healing. If I'd lived at that time, I too would have been called a witch. So I embrace it today. Women healers have survived and we can practice openly now, combining the best of modern medicine and traditional healing in a cozy little cottage by the sea. 

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