Hi, I’m Liz!

I’m a mom and a surgeon who passionately believes there is so much more we can do to help people get ready for and recover from surgery.

It feels like I have been in medicine nearly my entire life. I was an athlete as a child and therefore a patient following orthopedic injuries. 

I volunteered at the hospital as a teenager and then knew I wanted to help take care of patients very early on. 

In school I learned about all of the advances in medicine and all of the tools we have to treat patients.

I learned there was a pill for nearly everything... 

I loved the puzzle pieces of medicine. It was a mix and match of ailment and then dictating a dose and duration of medication for treatment. It did not seem to matter how many medications; if you have another symptom, just add another medication. Yet, when I got into practice, these medications may have been saving lives, but people were not necessarily feeling healthy. With surgical intervention, we could have the prettiest wounds and beautiful X-rays, but that did not always predict a satisfied patient. 

I decided that I had to dig a little deeper….

I went searching for what felt like the missing part of medicine. I went looking for the art of medicine that seemed to have been removed from process. I found what I would only be able to describe as the art of healing. I then started and completed my Fellowship in Integrative Medicine through the University of Arizona. 

It opened my eyes to aspects of medicine that are often set aside for our conventional pills. 

There is a reason why the same surgery, done on the same day, in the same way with the same team may not have the same outcome for each patient that day. Every person, every patient, is different. Even in orthopedics, you may have a different experience when you have your right knee replacement from the left; every situation is different. 

Though we have wonderful technology, medical advancements are ongoing and continue to push the boundaries of what we think we know, we cannot forget that there are basics of stress, nutrition, and healing that play an integral role in how we experience pain and recovery. 

This Is Why I’m Writing To You Today

I strongly believe that we have lost the sense of responsibility in our own health. I believe we have been conditioned to fix things by taking a pill and stop evaluating our participation in the process. Medical professionals are trained to evaluate, analyze, and prescribe, but the follow through has to be a team effort. I believe that teamwork to prepare for surgery, support for initial recovery, and guidance to achieve long term goals can help not only the physical recovery from surgery, but the experience of that event.