I graduated from Iowa State University college of Veterinary Medicine in 1980 and opened Highland Park Veterinary Clinic in 1981. In 1994, I sold my practice and continued to do relief work for several years.

After being personally treated by an acupuncturist in the late 1990s, I became interested in Chinese Medicine and took the International Veterinary Acupuncture Society (IVAS) Basic Acupuncture Course, passing the IVAS Board of exam in March, 2003. From March 2003 to the present, I have studied Chinese Herbal Medicine and advanced acupuncture techniques in a variety of programs. My training also involved several IVAS Herbal Medicine Modules.

Homotoxicology was added to my treatment offerings in June, 2005, and I completed Veterinary Chiropractic classes in May, 2006. I also completed a program in veterinary spinal manipulation at The Healing Oasis in Wisconsin.

My husband Tom and I live in Des Moines with three very spoiled dogs and we have three grown children who pop in from time to time.

Why I’m Doing This/Personal Philosophy
During clinics my senior year of veterinary school, I asked one of the clinicians if it was necessary to vaccinate pets every year. His answer was an unqualified, “Yes.” That reply was the beginning of my discomfort with the medicine I learned in school. While I believe allopathic medicine can be extraordinary medicine (such as in acute medical emergencies, when surgery is needed and in other areas), I believe it’s only one of the many tools in the box and at times has the capacity to cause side effects that are worse than the initial symptoms.

For me, holistic medicine answers many questions my prior medical training couldn’t address. The holistic approach allows the nature of disease to be viewed from the perspective of the entire patient: His or her past medical history, emotional state, lifestyle, and spectrum of symptoms. When viewed this way, a pattern can emerge that point to a single, underlying root cause of that pet’s problems and future disease prevention is possible.

Holistic medicine also provides innumerable approaches to a given issue. There are hundreds of acupuncture points, and countless combinations of these points. There are myriad herbal formulas and dozens of anti-homotoxic compounds. There is even chiropractic adjustment for mobility issues. As a result, my patients have more treatment options available.

Most importantly, this is a gentle medicine. My patients are treated on a couch or a rug in a home-like environment. It’s a quiet and painless medicine that feels better in my hands than allopathic medicine did. The ability to integrate this medicine with allopathic medicine gives my patients the best all worlds have to offer.