Today we’d like to introduce you to Stacy Welker.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I went back to college later in life, after having 3 kids and getting divorced. I realized that I needed to support my kids and had no college education to fall back on. Since being a teenager and going through my own health challenges I had always wanted to go into medicine. For many years I wanted to be a Cardiothoracic surgeon but realized at this point in my life it wasn’t the right path for me.
I decided becoming a Nurse Practitioner was more suited for my life and would give me the ability to still be there for my children. I went to Dixie State University where I graduated with my Registered Nurse degree. During nursing school, I had an experience where I was first on the scene of a motorcycle accident. I found myself jumping right in with no hesitation, stopping the bleeding and staying until the ambulance arrived. It was then that I knew I wanted to work in an emergency department.
At this time I met the love of my life and was remarried. I started my career on a Med/Surg and then took a job as an emergency nurse in both Level 1 & Level 2 trauma Centers. I was trained as a trauma nurse and charge nurse. When I graduated from Nurse Practitioner school I joined an Emergency Physician group in a level 2 trauma center. I loved emergency medicine but had a true passion for trauma care. I was offered a job with a general surgery physician group as a Nurse Practitioner Surgical First Assistant.
We covered all general, acute care, and trauma surgery for a level 2 trauma center. I loved what I was doing and I loved being in the operating room. After a few years, I started to have feelings of burnout. Working long hours and weekends was taking a toll not only on myself but on my family as well. I was seeing emergent consult after consult until I had a defining moment that changed my course. I was called to the emergency department in the middle of the night to consult on a patient that needed to be taken emergently to the operating room.
The patient was critically ill, septic, and needed a laparotomy for bowel perforation. I had seen this many times in my years as a Nurse Practitioner & general surgery first assistant, but this time it was different for me. I walked out of the patient’s room and started questioning what was happening in the outpatient world and that such drastic measures needed to take place to save this life.
I started to wonder why most of the problems I saw on a daily basis were not being intervened sooner. What happened to preventative medicine? Why was extensive surgery or surgery at all happening so frequently? Why were so many patients coming in with multiple chronic diseases that were not being well managed? I was seeing a huge gap in the conventional medical model and I was burned out and losing my passion for medicine.
I felt like we were the “fixers” running from one surgical emergency to another as though we were putting corks in the dam. I started doing research on preventative medicine and was introduced to Functional Medicine. I quickly became fascinated with looking at the root cause of the disease. I immediately enrolled with The School of Applied Functional Medicine and was blown away, no longer looking at the body as a constellation of systems but how all systems in the body work together and are interconnected.
Understanding the underlying driver of chronic disease became my passion. During this time period, I was starting to experience my own health problems, I had insomnia and my anxiety was on hyperdrive. I was only sleeping 2-3 hours per night and working full-time in a highly stressful environment. I started using what I had learned in functional medicine on myself and immediately saw a change.
I knew this was my future. I no longer wanted to live to work. I wanted to see my family and enjoy my life while still helping others. I wanted to love medicine and patient care again. I decided to open my own Functional Medicine Clinic, Alaya Health, and Wellness. Over the past year and a half, I have worked with patients to reverse type 2 diabetes, improved gut function, boost the immune system, balanced hormone disorders, and put autoimmune disease where it belongs — in remission.
One of the biggest surprises to me as I started doing functional medicine was the lack of education the patients had about their personal health — how the foods they ate, the toxins they are surrounded by, lack of sleep, and stress, actually created the symptoms and disease dynamics they were suffering with.
As my patient becomes more educated they were empowered and started to take their health back. I started to love medicine again and finally feel like I am part of the solution to prevent chronic disease. My vast background in emergency and surgical care sets me apart from other Functional Medicine practitioners. I have worked very hard in my career to be at the top of my game and learn as much as I possibly can to provide the best patient care, in any area I have worked.
This has helped me in my own practice because I can recognize things that can be solved in the outpatient world and those that need to be seen in an acute care setting. My general surgery background has influenced my functional medicine practice because I have a deep understanding of how the body works. I am passionate about educating patients on how daily life choices influence their health and either promote well-ness or illness.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I would say this has been a challenging road, with many late nights and a lot of tears. It took nearly 9 years to become a Nurse Practitioner while still working nearly full-time and having a family. I was lucky to have a very supportive husband who took care of our kids and managed our home life so I could focus on my career. When I decided to return to school for a Functional Medicine Certification, I think this added another layer of challenge in a different way.
I left my surgical position which was a hard change for me. I loved what I was doing but didn’t like what it was doing to me. I wanted to be the best version of myself and felt that slipping away. However, it gave me more time with my family. I missed out on so much with my children and even though they are now grown and fulfilling their own dreams, I am able to spend time with them and be a source of support in their lives. It has also given me time to focus on functional medicine and start my own private practice.
Along comes another challenge. Running a business is no joke & came with another set of challenges. I had no experience in business, luckily my husband has a vast business background and stepped in to help. I believe life is about challenges and how we balance them. I am a firm believer that we are built for a good amount of health challenges but not overwhelm, when we become too overwhelmed and stressed then things fall apart and our health suffers. At this point in my life, I have found more balance between work, family, and my own self-care.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Alaya Health & Wellness?
I am the founder and medical director of Alaya Health & Wellness, an Integrative Functional Medicine Practice. Functional medicine is an area of medicine that takes a holistic approach to health and wellness. We focus on looking at the whole person and identifying the root cause of the problem, rather than just treating symptoms.
We use various techniques to restore balance and optimize health, such as lifestyle modifications, dietary changes, peptide therapy, hormone replacement therapy, and cellular medicine. Our comprehensive approach helps restore the body back to optimal wellness.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I have struggled with my own health challenges throughout my life. When I was 16 I had a spontaneous pneumothorax (collapsed lung). Prior to this I was completely healthy and had no warning about this. I remember sitting down on the couch and experiencing crushing chest pain. I thought I was having a heart attack. Later that night my mom took me to our local community emergency department where I underwent a chest x-ray. I was told everything was normal and I likely had an infection of the lung lining. I was sent home on steroids.
For the next week, I remember laying on the couch getting worse and worse. After about 4 days, my mom got a call from the ER doctor in the middle of the night. He said that he had a feeling to review my chest x-ray. When he looked back at my x-ray he realized that he had missed something, my lung was completely collapsed. I was rushed back to the ER and a chest tube was emergently placed.
This began my journey. I spent the next year in and out of the hospital almost completely missing my Jr, year of high school. I had many many chest tubes but they could not get my lung to respond appropriately. I ended up undergoing a pleurodesis surgery to ensure my lung would not be able to collapse again. Going through this ended up shaping my life and the reason I went into medicine.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://alayahealthandwellness.com/
- Instagram: @alayahealthandwellness
- Facebook: @Stacy Jackman Welker, the page is Alaya Health and Wellness
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA1rvhchZ7SeihWb0vILmcg
Image Credits
Alisha Shaw Photography
