Please visit my new website OlakinoWellnessCenter.com

I am dually board certified as a Family Nurse Practitioner and in Comprehensive Yoga Therapy, which is the application of the principles and practices of Yoga to promote greater health and well-being within a therapeutic relationship that includes personalized assessment, goal setting, lifestyle management, and yoga practices.

Although I no longer practice yoga, my 1000-hour Comprehensive Yoga Therapy training at YogaLife Institute taught me a depth of holistic lifestyle, nutritional, and physical fitness that is not taught by Western medicine in allopathic healthcare. Formerly certified by the International Association of Yoga Therapists, I am able to empower individuals to have an experiential understanding of their challenges and “dis-eases” in a physical, psychological, and spiritual manner, thereby helping them to live a healthier life with reduced stress and anxiety, and find balance in their life, work and relationships.

As a Family Nurse Practitioner certified by the American Nurses Credentialing Center and licensed with Prescriptive Authority in the state of Hawaii, I alleviate suffering through prevention of disease and/or reversal and acceptance of complications from dis-ease, addressing illness in a multi-dimensional manner to heal body, mind, and spirit. While achieving my masters at DeSales University, I focused on non-communicable chronic diseases (ie. obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, malnourishment, etc.) and wove YogaLife Institute’s “yoga as a lifestyle” education into my papers and presentations and allowed it to be a central part of my practice and the way I approach and educate my patients.

I was invited out to Kauai to do an internship with Dr. Rogoff at Hale Le’a Family Practice November 2020, and started providing the physical assessments required by the State of Hawaii for medical cannabis certification with Dr. Baiko at Hawaii Compassionate Care in December 2020. By June of 2021, I felt confident enough to start following my dream to open my own concierge home-visit style private practice to offer this community an alternative approach to lifestyle and medicine.

After helping over 600 people on this island in my first year in practice, I decided to start the process of expanding my private practice to be able to accept most health insurances. I am partnering with Athenahealth as an Electronic Medical Record (to begin October 2022) to allow the ease of scheduling an appointment with me and to keep your health records at your fingertips and connected to your other healthcare providers. I am also in the process of acquiring an office space in Lihue to be central on the island to meet all of your healthcare needs.

Coming from Easton, PA, I am a US Army Veteran, having joined the Army after 9/11 happened my senior year of high school, and serving as a Russian Cryptolinguist. After a series of unfortunate events, I started developing undiagnosable medical issues and received an honorable medical discharge shortly after serving two years. Little did I know at the time that this would be the start of the 18 year journey that led to me accepting health insurance and opening my own private family practice to serve the people on the island of Kauai. I am able to empathize with my patients that do not understand what is happening in their bodies, because I was one of them.

When I was 21 years old as a Communication, Arts, and Sciences major at Penn State, I was misdiagnosed with lymphoma, and told that I needed to cancel my study abroad to Russia because I would need to start chemotherapy, only to be told a year later that “everyone has enlarged lymph nodes”, and prescribed antidepressants. Thankfully the economy collapsed after I graduated and after not being able to find a good job a year later I decided to go back to school to for a second accelerated bachelor’s degree at DeSales University to become a Registered Nurse so that I could have some clue as to what these doctors were telling me and what was happening in my body. It wasn’t until I was selling my home in Easton, while in my final year of graduate school at DeSales University as a Family Nurse Practitioner to be able to move out to Kauai, that I found my original operation report and saw that my removed lymph node had Cytomegalovirus, a form of mono, something that does not require a second operation nor diagnosis of lymphoma, as I had just learned that it is typical for lymph nodes to remain enlarged for 3-6 months. But none of the doctors I had seen over the years ever took the time to explain that to me. They would just do a ton of tests and then prescribe me antidepressants.

This treatment has given me the greatest passion to spend time with my patients and listen to their concerns and work with them to understand their health and how to live a higher quality of life through understanding healthy lifestyle choices like diet, exercise, and faith. I am a strong believer in mutual patient-provider decisions, and I will never force a medical treatment or procedure on you, because I didn’t like that happening to me.

After passing my Family Nurse Practitioner board exam, I secured an internship out here on Kauai and packed three suitcases and took a leap of faith knowing that I was not going back to PA. I love my life out here in Kauai, and I could not imagine myself living anywhere else. I love all things outdoors here including camping in Kalalau, going to the beach, hiking with the most spectacular views, and I am hoping that this season I will get better at surfing. I am married to the love of my life and a dog mom to Michelangelo Gabanna, my Pomeranian office dog you will see at your appointment. I am a devout Christian with my home church being Calvary Chapel- North Shore. And I am a patriot and a believer in freedom, autonomy, and the pursuit of happiness.