Meet Marla – Chinese Medicine Physician Assistant

Called to Serve Others

Helping people heal has always been part of my calling. Having spent 12 years working as a Respiratory Therapist in hospitals and 2 years as a Respiratory Therapy Health Coach, I am very familiar with the hospital setting and the western medical approach to medicine. Working with people who were very ill needing round the clock care is an experience I will never forget.  Of course every good care giver has to become ill themselves they say. So after experiencing some health challenges personally, I was led to explore energy medicine and absolutely fell in love with Reiki. Reiki healing became my passion, and I quickly passed through the three levels of training to achieve what many will refer to as a Master level training.  Reiki has been a powerful tool for me to use personally and professionally. Though I am technically certified as a Master level Reiki practitioner, I am here to share that there is always more to learn!

Respecting That Still Small Voice Inside

After my health had improved from employing a combination of both Western and Eastern medicine, I listened to that still small voice within that kept calling me back to the mountains.  I took a much needed break from Western healthcare and did something completely different – I fulfilled a life long dream of living in the Colorado mountains.  It is a wonderful thing to look back and know that I have accomplished this.

Marla and her 3 dogs.

Finding YAO

After 4 years of living in the mountains, family matters called me back to Denver.  During that time, I became certified as a life coach.  Life coaching is a methodology by which one can help people to move along there path of life in an empowered state by coming into alignment with their life’s purpose.  Still looking for something more while my coaching career was in simmer mode, I found YAO Clinic by happy accident. YAO embraced me at the Front Desk where I got my chops and learned the real ins and outs of deep nurturing and caring the YAO way – from the first phone call and email response all the way to the treatment room. Being that there is so much going on behind the scenes at YAO, my reliable nature and technical savvy allowed me to begin adding other tasks related to our distribution of Yin-care  to my daily duties as well as some accounting work as well!

As I became more and more well-integrated into YAO, Dr. Daniel mulled over my background in coaching and my contributions to YAO and about 6 months ago he offered me the opportunity to be his Chinese Medicine Physician Assistant!  The first few weeks of my new job were a blur, and in all honestly, I had a very steep learning curve. Each day I continue to learn something new!

Acupuncture is Extremely Effective

In my time as the Chinese Medicine Physician Assistant, I have noticed that patients are amazed at how much acupuncture can help them. Of course, the herbs are amazing as well, but I’d like to just take a moment to acknowledge our patients’ amazement with acupuncture in particular.