When seeking medical attention for physical ailments such as chronic pain, heart disease or auto immune issues, it’s rare to consider making mental wellness a priority alongside physical care. NW Mind-Body Wellness in Bend seeks to change the way people receive healthcare by caring for the whole person, both mind and body.
Wellness is a holistic philosophy, and the practice of an active lifestyle that doesn't wait for something to go wrong before doing something about it. Wellness goes beyond the absence of symptoms and works toward achieving the highest potential and prevention of future health problems.
Rebecca Dorsey, owner of NW Mind-Body Wellness, is a family and psychiatric nurse practitioner with experience in primary care, inpatient and internal medicine. For years Dorsey found it challenging and frustrating that when she worked exclusively in one area such as primary healthcare, mental healthcare was ignored or not well served. The same was true working in mental healthcare – primary healthcare for her patients was often missing. “This causes patients to be out of balance with the entirety of care that was needed,” explains Dorsey.
Dorsey has a deep belief that physical and mental health should not be treated separately and that connected care is the best way to treat a patient. When Dorsey landed in Oregon seven years ago, she states, “My goal was to create a place where patients could access appropriate primary and mental health care cohesively at one location.”
In 2021, Dorsey acquired Roots Family Medicine. “This allowed us to fully integrate mental health into an existing primary care office and become what is now the Bend location of NW Mind-Body Wellness,” says Dorsey. The first location for NW Mind-Body Wellness originated in Portland in 2017 as a community and home-based practice only.
The practice is unique in that it provides ‘person-centered’ healthcare. The providers have the knowledge and understanding that mental health affects the physical body in so many ways and that only a specialist can create a custom wellness plan for each patient. Each provider at NW Mind-Body Wellness has a different background and various discipline, which allows them to provide educated, safe, and unbiased healthcare to all their patients.
NW Mind-Body Wellness provides care to individuals of all ages and offers psychiatric medication management, primary care services, individual and group therapy. Many of the patients come to the facility after having had a negative experience with past healthcare and who really want to achieve the best for their physical and mental wellbeing.
“Here at NW Mind- Body Wellness, we are passionate about helping people discover and maintain the best version of themselves and we aim to change the way people receive and seek healthcare - one individual at a time,” Dorsey notes.
Keeping it Local
Because Oregon allows nurse practitioners ‘full practice autonomy’, the state makes it a welcoming place to have a wellness practice. Beautiful, outdoor areas also provide many different opportunities for both providers and patients to explore options for a healthy lifestyle with activities like bike riding, hiking and river activities.
NWMind-BodyWellness.com