The Northern Colorado Independent Practice Association goals are to:
Keep medical practices viable
Maintain patient-physician relationships
And to help practices provide the best care for their patients.
Read Dr. Fields’ interview with the physicians network below!
Dr. Jackie Fields is the kind of person who radiates peacefulness from the inside. As she speaks, it washes over those listening to her. She is a doctor of Family Medicine, and a specialist in Integrative/Functional Medicine. Her mission is to help her patients find better health and happiness while improving the community and the planet we all live in. Her passion for medicine and healing started at a young age, as she watched her father – a surgeon – care for his patients with tremendous love and compassion. Her mother, from Italy, created healing foods and taught that food was the source of health. As Dr. Fields was finishing high school her mother was diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma. By her first year in college, she accompanied her mom to Massachusetts General for a 12-hour brain surgery. While her mom was ill, she studied and learned about the research that renowned Dr. Bernie Siegel, a Yale surgeon, was doing on psychoneuroimmunology. His expertise lies in mind-body medicine and the relationship between the patient and the healing process. Around this time, she wrote him to ask about his approach to medicine and how she could get trained in this approach to medicine. Dr. Siegel responded immediately and became a mentor to her throughout medical school and her medical training.
As she finished college, Dr. Siegel became the first president of the American Board of Holistic Medicine and invited Jackie to the first national meeting! At this meeting, she was the youngest invitee and it was here she met many of her future mentors including: Dr. Andrew Weil, Patch Adams, Christiane Northrup, and Deepak Chopra. After meeting and connecting to these amazing paradigm shifters in medicine, it became clear medical school was her path and these fantastic mentors would inspire her to create the dream clinic that would serve people better in mind and body. Dr. Fields had a fascination with indigenous medicine, mostly because in these cultures it was evident that the mind was never separated from the body in treatment and the wisdom of plant medicine was not lost. This fascination led her to traveling around the world to learn and train with Indigenous healers. Her main travel destinations were mainly located in central and South America.
Dr. Fields proudly states that practicing Integrative Medicine has given her, “27 years of miraculous healing stories with her patients.” She believes in using allopathic medicine when necessary, but for chronic issues an integrative approach serves the patient much better. Her patients take an active part in their own healing and health journeys and take part in co-creating a plan to reach their own personalized health goals. Dr. Fields uses a functional and integrative medicine approach, as she likes to keep all options on the table for patients’ unique healthcare needs. She addresses each patient’s physical, emotional, social, environmental, and spiritual health issues individually. She also believes in creating a “big picture” view – and is willing to coordinate patients’ medical care with other providers to make sure her treatment plan takes all the patient’s health care needs into account.
“Integrative medicine is less harmful to the human body overall,” states Dr. Fields. It is important to empower and educate patients about what they can do to shift their health by changing their diets and lifestyle. Dr. Fields says, “Eighty percent of chronic disease can be healed with lifestyle changes…now that’s health care reform”. This approach is especially powerful when figuring out and helping people in their recovery from complex, chronic medical conditions. Some of the patients she sees may have already been to 10 different providers and have given up hope by the time they see Dr. Fields. After consulting with her about options, they realize there really is hope for them, by taking an integrative medicine approach. Her clinic includes all methods and modalities. While she is duel Board Certified in Family Medicine and Integrative Medicine, her integrative center has experts in nutrition, botanicals, supplements, acupuncture, homeopathy, physical medicine, holistic psychotherapy, and mind-body medicine.
Dr. Fields learned that even if a patient eats a nutrition diet, often chemicals in products they are using will cause adverse reactions. After years of research and consulting with pharmacists and experts, she formulated her own line of skin care products which is called “Dr. Fields’ Sacred Skin.” She has taken the Safe Cosmetics Pledge not to use any known carcinogens, hormone disruptors or toxic chemicals in her skin care products. More about her products can be found on the practice website (listed at the end of this article) and in her natural pharmacy located at her practice. A percentage of profits from these product sales goes towards funding The Healing Gardens Foundation. This foundation is a non-profit organization formed by Dr. Fields with the purpose of supporting education and research in integrative medicine and helping fund patients unable to afford these modalities.
The Healing Gardens Foundation created a vibrant and healing garden for all to enjoy, free of charge. It is planted in the form of a Native American medicine wheel to teach people where their medicine really derives from. The Gardens include a variety of plants with significant medicinal properties for healing. The Gardens are located at 315 Canyon Avenue, at the intersection of Olive Street and Canyon Avenue in Fort Collins.
So, what inspires such an inspiring woman? “Inspiring healers!” she exclaimed, along with “competence and curiosity.” Her drive and passion is fueled and nourished by her family, local community, and the simple awe of what nature has to offer.
