The Book of the Lamp — Read free with Kindle Unlimited · Kindle eBook: $0.99 · Paperback: $5.75.
🪔 From the EVERgreen Archives
🏮 Mentors Who Lit the Way
HISTORICAL ARCHIVE · GRATITUDE, NOT ENDORSEMENT
The Kitchen Monk™ Mentorship Archive
Someone carried the lamp before us. We remember them. We learn from them. And then we carry the light forward.
🌱 The Plantrician Project — Thank You for Lighting Our Lamp
Power of the Plate helped light a new lamp for Kitchen Monk™ and Flourishing Nursing™. From San Diego, we brought home more than education: we brought home belonging, interdisciplinary friendship, practical tools, and a renewed commitment to move nursing forward.
🎓 Plantrician education led by Jill Edwards, MS, CEP, DipACLM, Director of Education. Explore free Quick Start Guides, Plantrician University, open-access science, Plantrician Providers, Power of the Plate, scholarships, culinary education and systems-change resources.
💃 Dedicated to Jill Edwards — our Chief Flourishing Educator™. 🌱🩺 Scott Stoll, MD — Co-founder & Board Chairman of The Plantrician Project and our Chief Plantrician Guardian. These are honorary titles created by our organizations.
Moving Nursing Forward: Read the science → Learn the practice → Connect with support → Bring it home.
Kitchen Monk™ and Flourishing Nursing™ independently recommend educational resources from The Plantrician Project. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, this does not indicate sponsorship, partnership, endorsement, or organizational affiliation. Honorary titles are ours, not Plantrician Project positions.
🌿 Leadership lesson from TrueNorth: founder Alan Goldhamer, DC leads an organization whose public team includes clinicians, nurses, kitchen staff, administration, housekeeping, facilities, concierge and scheduling. Health-promoting work is carried by whole teams. That same principle guides our conviction that the people doing the caring must be able to flourish, too.
🪔 Why this matters to Nathanael: he honors The Plantrician Project for helping keep the heart in medicine—bringing evidence, food, human connection, and interdisciplinary care back together. That vision resonates deeply with the nursing leadership Nathanael has followed throughout his professional life, including the work of 🥷 Dr. Karen Laing, whom Flourishing Nursing™ honors for carrying forward a modern nursing tradition of whole-person care inspired by 🥷 Florence Nightingale.
Our gratitude is wholehearted: The Plantrician Project has spent years helping clinicians and communities imagine healthcare that nourishes people, relationships, and the systems around them. We want nursing to stand beside that work, strengthen it, and help carry it farther.
🌿 The people who helped me flourish: remembering Ethos Farm Days 2022
New dedicated page: Farm Days — the Garden of Eden reflection, gratitude for Dr. Ron Weiss, the 2022 trailer, and ways to keep learning →
Remembering Ethos Farm Days 2022, I feel grateful for the mentors, colleagues, farmers, and students who have been part of my journey. My time at Ethos Primary Care helped shape the vision I now carry forward through Kitchen Monk™ and Flourishing Nursing™.
🧘 Asha Gala, my former manager and mentor: Thank you for your guidance and for the care you bring to coaching, mindfulness, and supporting people through change. I am grateful for what I learned alongside you.
🌱 Dr. Ron Weiss, physician, farmer, and mentor: Thank you for the opportunity to learn in a setting where food, farming, and clinical care meet. My time at Ethos remains a meaningful part of my nursing journey.
🚜 Farmer Nora Pugliese: Thank you for the knowledge, care, and hard work you bring to the land. The people who grow our food deserve a place of honor in every conversation about nourishment and health.
📚 T. Colin Campbell, PhD: Thank you for your research and teaching on whole-food, plant-based nutrition, and for inspiring so many of us to keep asking questions and learning.
🥗 Dr. Joel Fuhrman: Thank you for helping me appreciate nutrient-dense, plant-rich food and for encouraging people to make nourishment a meaningful part of daily life.
🩺 Dr. Michael Klaper: Thank you for your dedication to nutrition education and Moving Medicine Forward, bringing that learning to future physicians. Teaching the next generation is a powerful way to extend our care.
🎓 Pragya Thakur: Congratulations on earning your Master of Public Health! It is wonderful to celebrate your continued growth and your contributions to the Ethos community. Your next chapter deserves to be celebrated.
💚 Denise Bitz: I am especially proud of your journey—from completing your nurse practitioner clinical training with me, to graduating, to bringing advanced practice nursing into patients’ homes. It was a privilege to be part of your education, and a joy to see you carry that care forward.
And thank you to the wider Farm Days community—including Dr. Sailesh Rao, Gene Baur, Jessi Stensland, Nick Hodgson, the Kellyn Foundation, and the volunteers and team members whose contributions helped make this gathering possible.
This is part of what flourishing means to me: receiving knowledge with gratitude, sharing it generously, and helping the next person grow. Farmers, nurses, physicians, coaches, researchers, students, and neighbors all have something valuable to contribute.
Through Kitchen Monk™ and Flourishing Nursing™, I hope to carry these lessons forward with faith, compassion, and an open invitation to everyone who wants to help others flourish.
To everyone who has helped light the way: thank you. May the care we have received become care we give. 🪔🌱
Flourishing Nurse Ninja Nathanael Elijah Smith, FNP-C, DipACLM
Founder, Kitchen Monk™ & Flourishing Nursing™
Explore the original work: Ethos Farm Days 2022 archive · Asha Gala · Nora Pugliese and the farm team · Moving Medicine Forward · Pragya’s Master of Public Health announcement.
Continue the story: Dr. Ron Weiss · T. Colin Campbell · Michael Klaper · Pragya Thakur · Read this tribute on our companion site.
A personal reflection by Flourishing Nurse Ninja Nathanael Elijah Smith, October 19, 2026, remembering Ethos Farm Days 2022 and celebrating the people who helped shape his journey.
Another treasured Ethos memory: Dr. Saray Stancic
Meeting Dr. Saray Stancic, MD, at an Ethos community event is a memory I treasure. I am grateful for her commitment to lifestyle medicine, prevention, and helping future clinicians think more deeply about how we care for people.
Ethos’s 2019 Farm Days archive records her keynote appearance on August 17, 2019. I also celebrate her contribution to this community and the encouragement her work offers to those of us caring for others.
Explore this memory on our Farm Days page · Read Dr. Stancic’s tribute and explore her work.
Whole-team welcome, nurse-led cooking, and official video learning
American Nurses Association’s Licensed Practical Nurse and Licensed Vocational Nurse membership expansion and our welcome to Certified Nursing Assistants → · Food for Life and whole-person nursing →. These independent guides separate association policy, our community invitation, and the original educators’ work.
🎓 ▶ Watch official American Nurses Association ethics learning — recorded Provision 1
Publisher: American Nurses Association / American Nurses Enterprise. Related ethics education, not a Licensed Practical Nurse and Licensed Vocational Nurse membership announcement. Exact original American Nurses Association video ↗ · More official American Nurses Association ethics recordings and source details →
🥦 ▶ Watch the official Food for Life program introduction — recorded
▶ Open the on-page publisher player on Flourishing Nursing. Kitchen Monk’s native embed does not render this publisher’s player; the companion player provides the watch experience.
Publisher: Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. This is a program overview, not a recipe cook-along, a particular nurse’s recent post, or a live broadcast. Exact original Food for Life player ↗ · Educator profiles, source dates, and access details →
🌍 New: follow everyone we honor, all in one place.
🧭 Jump to:
🪔 Lamps Lit This Season · September 2026
🌱 Leadership announcement
🌱 Meryl Fury, MS, RN
Plant Based Support has named Meryl Fury its new President & Chief Executive Officer. She is also President and Chief Executive Officer of Plant Based Nutrition Movement, a separate nonprofit, where she leads the 6 Million SEEDS Child Nutrition Project and hosts the Growing a Healthy Child podcast. Meryl is one of Nathanael’s closest nursing friends.
When Nathanael was brand new in his current clinical role, Meryl was one of the very few people who stepped forward to help. She gave her time. She trusted him. She encouraged him. She wanted another nurse to succeed. If that isn’t nursing leadership, what is?
Follow Meryl and share the good news:
🥗 Featured by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine’s Nurses Nutrition Network
🥦 Joanne Evans, MEd, RN, PMHCNS-BC
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine’s Nurses Nutrition Network, home to Food for Life nurse leaders Tammy Robertson and Cody Stubbe, featured Joanne as a special guest speaker. A nurse for 50 years, Joanne serves on the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine’s Medical Advisory Board and has spent years helping nurses learn plant-based nutrition. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine also shared her study in which 19 George Mason University nurses tried plant-based eating for 21 days (American Journal of Nursing, 2017).
📖 The Flourishing Nurse’s Bookshelf
📗 Cultivating Seeds of Health with Plant-Based Nutrition
Joanne Evans, MEd, RN, PMHCNS-BC (2020)
Nurses who discovered plant-based nutrition after nursing school share how they now teach it to patients, families, colleagues, and communities. Seeds, gardens, and nurses who plant health: it could have been written for the Garden of the EVERgreen Chronicles.
📘 Code Calm: A Nurse’s Guide to Surviving and Thriving
Nurse Blake (Blake Lynch, BSN, RN) with contributing nurses (2026)
An honest, practical guide to burnout, trauma, mental health, and boundaries, written by nurses for nurses. Blake has shared that it grew from his own time as a patient, when he noticed that several of the first people he met there were nurses. It answers the question at the heart of Kitchen Monk: who nurses the nurse? The book benefits the Nurse Support Network.
💙 If you are a nurse who is struggling right now, you are not alone. In the United States, you can call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline any time.
Recommended reading. Kitchen Monk™ earns nothing from these links, and the authors and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine have not reviewed or endorsed this site.
📚 The Flourishing Nurse’s Bookshelf, continued
📚 More Books by Nurses Who Lead With Lifestyle
🥗 The plant-based kitchen shelf
- The Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook (2014) · Jane Esselstyn, RN, with Ann Crile Esselstyn. Over 125 plant-based recipes.
- Be a Plant-Based Woman Warrior · Jane Esselstyn, RN, with Ann Crile Esselstyn.
- The Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook for Beginners · Jane Esselstyn, RN.
- The Engine 2 Seven-Day Rescue Diet · co-authored by Jane Esselstyn, RN, with Rip Esselstyn. Jane also created the recipes for Plant-Strong.
- Food Is Climate by Glen Merzer · with recipes from nurse Cody Stubbe and her daughters of So Many Kids in the Kitchen.
🫀 The heart-health shelf
- Heart Attack! Advice for Patients by Patients (Yale University Press) · co-authored by nurse practitioner Kathy Berra, with chapters written by heart attack survivors themselves.
🌿 The nurse coaching & holistic nursing shelf
- Nurse Coaching: Integrative Approaches for Health and Wellbeing (2015) · 🥷 Barbara Dossey, 🥷 Susan Luck, and 🥷 Bonney Gulino Schaub, all registered nurses. The first comprehensive Nurse Coach textbook.
- The Art and Science of Nurse Coaching (American Nurses Association; 2nd ed. 2021) · Southard, Dossey, Bark, and Schaub.
- Dossey & Keegan’s Holistic Nursing: A Handbook for Practice (8th ed., 2022).
- Florence Nightingale: Mystic, Visionary, Healer · 🥷 Barbara Dossey, PhD, RN. For every nurse who carries the lamp.
📝 Chapters by nurses we honor
Deborah Chielli, Janine Santora, Elizabeth Click, Carolyn Sweetapple, and Elizabeth Simkus wrote nursing chapters in Lifestyle Nursing and Lifestyle Medicine.
✍️ Are you a nurse who has written a book on lifestyle medicine, plant-based nutrition, nurse coaching, or nurse well-being? Tell us and we’ll add it to the shelf.
Recommended reading only. Kitchen Monk™ earns nothing from these books, and the authors and publishers have not reviewed or endorsed this site. Books are for education and are not a substitute for individualized medical care.
👑 Our 🥷 Florence Nightingale Queens
🤝 Connect With and Support These Nurses
Every one of these nurses carries the lamp. The best thank-you is to show up for their work: follow them, read their books, listen to their talks, share their posts, and invite them to speak.
📖 New on the Bookshelf
🙏 Faith Forward · LaTaya De Jesus, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, DipACLM
A book about moving forward in faith, from a nurse whose journey began as a United States Army combat medic and who now helps people reverse chronic disease through lifestyle medicine at Eden Health Restored. LaTaya credits God for guiding every step of her healthcare journey. Faith, food, and flourishing, all in one lamp.
| Nurse | Follow, read, and share |
|---|---|
| Meryl Fury | @themerylfury ↗ · LinkedIn ↗ · Plant Based Support ↗ · Plant Based Nutrition Movement ↗ · Her Kitchen Monk page → |
| LaTaya De Jesus | LaTaya De Jesus · Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine profile ↗ · Faith Forward ↗ |
| Janine Santora | Capital Health ↗ · LinkedIn ↗ |
| Deborah Chielli | LinkedIn ↗ |
| Karla Rodriguez | New York University ↗ · LinkedIn ↗ |
| Krista Dewar | LinkedIn ↗ |
| Josie Bidwell & Lauren Turner | Josie at University of Mississippi Medical Center ↗ · University of Mississippi Medical Center team ↗ |
| Joanne Evans | Cultivating Seeds of Health ↗ |
| Caroline Trapp, Tammy Robertson & Cody Stubbe | Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine Nurses Nutrition Network ↗ |
| 🥷 Barbara Dossey & 🥷 Susan Luck | Integrative Nurse Coach Academy ↗ |
| Nurse Blake | @nurse.blake ↗ · Code Calm ↗ |
| Everyone | American College of Lifestyle Medicine on Instagram ↗ |
🙋 Are you one of these nurses? Send us your Blinq card, website, or social handles and we’ll add them so more people can find and support your work. We only post contact links nurses share publicly or ask us to add.
Public professional links only. These nurses are not affiliated with Kitchen Monk™ and have not endorsed it. We earn nothing from any link here.
👑 More Ways to Find and Follow Them
| Nurse | Profiles, practices, and stories |
|---|---|
| Trey Bennett | Vitality Lifestyle Medicine profile ↗ · His #healthynurse story ↗ |
| Kara Mosesso | A day in the life of Kara ↗ (26-time marathoner) |
| Tammy Robertson | Food for Life instructor page ↗ · Her #healthynurse story ↗ |
| Cody Stubbe | Food for Life instructor page ↗ |
| Caroline Trapp | Plant-Based Prevention of Disease profile ↗ · Plant Yourself podcast ↗ |
| Kathy Berra | Heart Attack! ↗ · Lifestyle Nursing ↗ |
Still looking for public handles for Susie Spell, Elizabeth Winings, Elizabeth Simkus, Elizabeth Click, Carolyn Sweetapple, Kathleen Wilson, Allison Leppke, Amy Becklenberg, Lisa McCarl, Erin Sinnaeve, and Jane Esselstyn. If you are one of them, send us your links or Blinq card using the button above.
🩺 Nurses leading inside the American College of Lifestyle Medicine
🩺 American College of Lifestyle Medicine Nursing Member Interest Group leaders
With gratitude for the nursing leaders Nathanael knows through the American College of Lifestyle Medicine’s registered nurse and advanced practice registered nurse community and the 2025 conference.
🎙️ Susan “Susie” G. Spell, MSN, FNP-BC, DipACLM: her official Lifestyle Medicine 2025 biography identifies her as a registered nurse and advanced practice registered nurse group co-chair. Nathanael identifies her as the person hugging Kelly Freeman during the 2nd Annual Lifestyle Medicine Nursing Award presentation he recorded.
🌿 Krista Dewar, DNP, ARNP, FNP-C, DipACLM: family nurse practitioner and founder of Lifestyle Health & Wellness in Dubuque, Iowa. Krista took time to get to know Nathanael when he was a stranger to her at Lifestyle Medicine 2025. That welcome is why she is Kitchen Monk’s first featured provider.
🎓 Karla Rodriguez, DNP, RN, CNE, NC-BC, DipACLM, FNYAM: New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing professor who teaches a lifestyle medicine elective and founded the student group Plant-Based Lifestyle for Nurses.
🎉 New Fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine: Deborah Chielli, MSN, APRN, AGNP-C, DipACLM, FACLM
A board-certified lifestyle medicine nurse practitioner with the Rochester Lifestyle Medicine Institute, Deborah is now a Fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. She is a Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine Food for Life instructor, contributed to the Lifestyle Nursing textbook, and co-wrote a chapter on nursing ethics, self-care, and the changing roles of nurses in the textbook Lifestyle Medicine.
Recognition of public work only; these nurses are not affiliated with Kitchen Monk™ and have not endorsed it.
🪔 The nurses who show up
🪔 More Nurses Lighting the Way
At the American College of Lifestyle Medicine’s 2023 conference, lifestyle medicine nurses gathered for a photo simply captioned “Nurses representing”: Deborah Chielli, Susie Spell, Joanne Evans, Erin Sinnaeve, Elizabeth Winings, and Elizabeth Simkus. Lamps, side by side. Here are more of them.
🏥 Elizabeth Simkus, DNP, FNP-C, DipACLM: medical director of the RUSH Prevention Center in Chicago and author of the advanced practice nursing chapter in the textbook Lifestyle Medicine.
🎖️ LaTaya De Jesus, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, DipACLM: founder and Chief Executive Officer of Eden Health Restored, a lifestyle medicine health coaching company; her healthcare career began as a United States Army combat medic.
🧠 Elizabeth Winings, DNP, APRN, PMHNP, DipACLM: psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner, Jacksonville University nursing professor, and owner of Winings Wellness, a practice grounded in lifestyle medicine.
🎓 Elizabeth R. Click, DNP, ND, RN, CWP: nurse educator who co-wrote the textbook chapter on bringing lifestyle medicine into nursing education.
📝 Carolyn Sweetapple, RN, PhD, MBA: co-author of the opening nursing chapter, “Lifestyle Nursing: Lifestyle Medicine and Nursing.”
🩺 Lauren Turner, MSN, FNP-C, DipACLM: lifestyle medicine nurse practitioner at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, on Josie Bidwell’s preventive medicine team.
🌼 Erin Sinnaeve, DNP, FNP-C (friend of the movement): family nurse practitioner with 25+ years in health care who practices allergy and immunology alongside lifestyle medicine.
Recognition of public work only; these nurses are not affiliated with Kitchen Monk™ and have not endorsed it.
🏮 The Lamp Is Never Lit Alone
Kitchen Monk™ did not begin with a logo, a website, or a book. It emerged gradually through years of nursing, advanced-practice nursing, bedside experience, prevention, lifestyle medicine, Food as Medicine, patient education, mentorship, professional collaboration, and a growing conviction that healthcare could become more relational, restorative, preventive, joyful, and human.
Every person who eventually carries a lamp was once helped by someone else’s light. This archive preserves some of those moments. It is not a list of endorsements. It is a record of gratitude, and of how many people it takes to help one human being grow.
🙏 We Honor the People Who Helped Us Become
Kitchen Monk™ believes flourishing is relational.
Every person carries lessons received from others.
Mentors help us see possibilities before we can fully see them ourselves.
Teachers give us language. Patients give us wisdom.
Families give us roots. Communities give us belonging.
And eventually, we are called to pass what we have learned forward.
That is why we preserve these moments.
Mentorship Archive · Lifestyle Medicine
🎞 Dr. Ron Weiss, DipABLM
Earlier lifestyle medicine mentor
Before Kitchen Monk™ became a name, Flourishing Nurse Ninja Nathanael Elijah Smith’s journey through lifestyle medicine was shaped by mentors, colleagues, teachers, patients, nurses, physicians, chefs, and advocates who helped him understand what healthcare could become.
Among those earlier mentors was Dr. Ron Weiss, DipABLM, a board-certified lifestyle medicine physician and founder of Ethos Primary Care and the nonprofit Ethos Farm to Health (formerly the Ethos Farm Project) in Long Valley, New Jersey.
⭐ TOP STORY · LYME DISEASE · 23:30 TO 29:30
🦌 When the Physician Needs a Nurse Practitioner
In this conversation on Chef AJ’s YouTube channel, streamed live March 15, 2024, Dr. Weiss discusses Lyme disease. It became the heart of our first Flourishing Nursing story, about listening, noticing, and the courage to speak.
▶ Tap the cover to watch on YouTube, starting at 23:30.
📎 Also from the archive
🧂 Iodine · watch 53:47 to 58:34. Streamed live March 17, 2023. Dr. Weiss recognizes Nathanael at about 56:36.
Shared for their place in Kitchen Monk’s history, not as medical advice. Please talk with your own clinician about Lyme disease or iodine.
🌿 More about Dr. Weiss
The doctor who grows what he prescribes, and who trains tomorrow’s physicians on his farm.
ℹ️ Historical content, not medical advice. Archived discussions are provided for historical and educational context and may not reflect current evidence, guidelines, or Kitchen Monk™ educational recommendations. They are not individualized medical advice. Health decisions should be made with an appropriately qualified healthcare professional familiar with the individual’s circumstances.
What this archive is, and isn’t. This page documents historical mentorship. Dr. Ron Weiss and Chef AJ are independent and are not affiliated with Kitchen Monk™, Flourishing Nursing, Flourishing Nursing Forward™, or The EVERgreen Chronicles™, and nothing here means they have reviewed or endorsed them. The videos belong to their original publisher and are linked, not copied. In an emergency, call 911.
The EVERgreen Chronicles · Book of the Lamp
🪔 The Lamps Before the Lamp
Before Nathanael carried the Kitchen Monk™ Lamp, others carried light for him. Teachers. Nurses. Physicians. Mentors. Patients. Family. Friends. Colleagues. Chefs. Advocates.
Each left something behind: a lesson, a question, a challenge, an example, a word of encouragement, a glimpse of what healthcare could become.
Some people light the trail. Others steady us through storms. Others teach us to navigate. All become part of the voyage.
📜 The Scroll of the Lampkeepers
Honor those who helped light your road.
Remember their lessons.
Carry forward what was good.
Keep learning. Keep questioning. Keep growing.
Then turn around and hold the lamp for someone coming behind you.
🌱 The Light Is Handed Forward
A mentor teaches a clinician. A clinician teaches a nurse. A nurse teaches a family. A parent teaches a child. A Flourishing Guardian teaches another Flourishing Guardian. The lamp continues.
Learning across disciplines did not lead Nathanael away from nursing. It deepened his belief in what nursing can become. We learn from physicians, registered dietitians, chefs, therapists, physical therapists, community health workers, patients, families, and one another. Nurses then bring those lessons together at the human point of care. That is the heart of Flourishing Nursing Forward™.
Look at how many people help one human being grow. Now imagine what happens when we do that for everyone.
🏮 More Lamps Along the Trail
This archive will keep growing, across family, nursing, lifestyle medicine, Food as Medicine, culinary medicine, faith, education, community, and the patients who taught us. For now, you can meet some of these lamps elsewhere on the site:
🧭 Keep exploring:
🪔 All the lifestyle medicine nurses we honor
Every nurse featured on this page, in one list. This is a recognition list, not a list of partners: these nurses have no affiliation with Kitchen Monk™ or Flourishing Nursing and have not endorsed them.
| Nurse | Public work in lifestyle medicine |
|---|---|
| ⭐ Meryl Fury, MS, RN | President and Chief Executive Officer of Plant Based Nutrition Movement and new President & Chief Executive Officer of Plant Based Support |
| Josie Bidwell, DNP, RN, FNP-C, DipACLM, FACLM | First nurse inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (2022); American College of Lifestyle Medicine board director; University of Mississippi Medical Center |
| Deborah Chielli, MSN, APRN, AGNP-C, DipACLM, FACLM | New Fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine; Food for Life instructor; textbook author |
| Janine Santora, MSN, APRN, FNP-C, SCRN, CNRN | Neuroscience nurse practitioner; co-author of the nursing ethics and self-care chapter in Lifestyle Medicine |
| Kathy Berra, MSN, NP-BC, FAHA, FPCNA, FAAN | Co-editor of Lifestyle Nursing; founder of the Preventive Cardiovascular Nurses Association |
| Caroline Trapp, DNP, ANP-BC, CDE, FAANP, DipACLM | Director of Diabetes Care at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine; helped establish its Nurses Nutrition Network |
| Susan “Susie” Spell, FNP, DipACLM | American College of Lifestyle Medicine nursing interest group leader; Jacksonville nurse practitioner, health coach, and podcast host |
| Krista Dewar, DNP, ARNP, FNP-C | American College of Lifestyle Medicine nursing interest group leader; owner of Lifestyle Health and Wellness |
| Karla Rodriguez, DNP, RN, CNE, NC-BC, DipACLM, FNYAM | American College of Lifestyle Medicine nursing interest group leader; New York University nursing professor |
| Elizabeth Simkus, DNP, FNP-C, DipACLM | Medical director, RUSH Prevention Center; textbook author |
| LaTaya De Jesus, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, DipACLM | Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Eden Health Restored; Army combat medic turned lifestyle medicine nurse practitioner |
| Elizabeth Winings, DNP, APRN, PMHNP, DipACLM | Jacksonville University nursing professor; owner of Winings Wellness |
| Elizabeth R. Click, DNP, ND, RN, CWP | Co-author of the textbook chapter on lifestyle medicine in nursing education |
| Carolyn Sweetapple, RN, PhD, MBA | Co-author of the textbook chapter “Lifestyle Nursing: Lifestyle Medicine and Nursing” |
| Lauren Turner, MSN, FNP-C, DipACLM | Lifestyle medicine nurse practitioner, University of Mississippi Medical Center |
| Trey Bennett, MSN, NP, DipACLM | Founder of Vitality Lifestyle Medicine, Kansas City area |
| Kara Mosesso, MSN, ANP-BC, AOCNP, DipACLM | Oncology nurse practitioner; founder of Nomadic Nourishment |
| Kathleen P. Wilson, PhD, APRN, CPNP, FNP-BC, BC-ADM, FAANP, FNAP, DipACLM | Author of “The Nurse’s Role in Lifestyle Medicine” (Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation) |
| Allison Leppke, DNP, MPH, APRN, FNP-C, DipACLM | Emory nursing faculty; led a lifestyle medicine family nurse practitioner curriculum pilot |
| Amy Becklenberg, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, FAANP | Nurse practitioner educator; co-author of that curriculum pilot |
| Joanne Evans, MEd, RN, PMHCNS-BC | Author of Cultivating Seeds of Health with Plant-Based Nutrition |
| Tammy Robertson, RN, BSN | Co-chair of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine’s Nurses Nutrition Network; founder of Cooking On The Veg and Robertson Health and Wellness |
| Cody Stubbe, MSN, RN | Nursing instructor; author of “Nursing’s role in lifestyle medicine” (American Nurse Journal) |
| Lisa McCarl | National Health Association Travel Coordinator and Advisor (National Health Association Cruise Travel); retired open-heart recovery nurse |
| Erin Sinnaeve, DNP, FNP-C | Friend of the movement; allergy and immunology nurse practitioner who also practices lifestyle medicine |
Credentials and roles are listed as they appear in each nurse’s public work and may have changed. Are you a lifestyle medicine nurse? Use the nomination form below to be added, or let us know if you’re listed and would rather not be.
💌 Nominate a Nurse
Know a nurse who carries the lamp through food, movement, sleep, connection, or prevention? Are you one? Tell us, and share their public links or Blinq card so others can find and support them. Nominations go to our team inbox (rfjeep@gmail.com).
Thank you for your response. ✨
We list nurses only with their permission and only share links they make public. Please don’t include private health or contact information.
🌿 Holistic nursing: the American Holistic Nurses Association
Since 1981, the American Holistic Nurses Association has advanced holistic nursing through community building, advocacy, research, and education. Its sister organization, the American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation, offers nationally accredited certification in holistic nursing and nurse coaching.
🗞️ Recent from holistic nursing (September 2026)
- 💻 American Holistic Nurses Association virtual conference: on-demand 2026 conference sessions are available to registered virtual attendees through December 31, 2026, with contact hours. Details at ahna.org.
- 🌊 46th Annual Conference: held June 10–14, 2026, in Niagara Falls, New York, on the theme “Holistic Nursing: Engaging Mother Nature’s Wisdom.”
- 💚 Nurse well-being: The American Holistic Nurses Association’s free Promoting Nurse Health and Well-Being Resource Kit, in English and Spanish, is under Resources on ahna.org.
- 💳 Nurse coaching and Medicare: The American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation reports that a 2026 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services proposed rule would let health and wellness coaching be billed to Medicare under provider supervision. It is a proposal, not a final rule.
- 🔬 Research: The American Holistic Nurses Association publishes the peer-reviewed Journal of Holistic Nursing.
📡 Latest posts from the American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation (updates automatically)
The American Holistic Nurses Association and the American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation are independent organizations. They are not affiliated with Kitchen Monk™ or Flourishing Nursing and have not endorsed them. Always check their official sites for current dates, fees, and requirements.
Deborah Chielli: moving nursing forward
I admire Deborah Chielli for her longstanding efforts to move nursing forward. These photographs were taken while I volunteered at the 2023 National Health Association conference: with Deborah and my employer at the time, Dr. Alan Goldhamer; and with Deborah and Dr. Joel Fuhrman, a previous mentor.
📂 Archive source record
Archive No. 1
Title: The Doctor Is In: March Q&A with Ron Weiss, M.D – Sinusitis, Urticaria, Iodine Deficiency & More…
Original URL: https://www.youtube.com/live/amSCAI-qZ_Q?si=L5n0-5IxV5wdmCs7
Host / channel: Chef AJ (YouTube) · Featured speaker: Ron Weiss, MD, DipABLM
Date: streamed live March 17, 2023
Moment One: iodine discussion, 53:47–58:34 · Nathanael reference: ~56:36
Moment Two: 59:40–1:00:14 · cited as an inspiration for the Flourishing Nursing Coach Ninja™ (Nathanael’s framework)
Accessed: September 25, 2026 · Verified quotation: none yet
Archive No. 2
Title: Ron Weiss, MD Answers Viewer Questions on Lyme Disease, Cellulitis Do Vegans Break More Bones & More
Original URL: https://www.youtube.com/live/agRrBa_yEEU?si=qeQUlp7PbPDGxUcm
Host / channel: Chef AJ (YouTube) · Featured speaker: Ron Weiss, MD, DipABLM
Date: streamed live March 15, 2024 · Topic: Lyme disease (within a broader Q&A)
Relevant segment: 23:30–29:30
Accessed: September 25, 2026 · Verified quotation: none yet
🌿 Where to next?
Written by Flourishing Nurse Ninja Nathanael Elijah Smith, FNP-C, DipACLM · Last updated October 9, 2026.
🎥 Archived conversations: watch on YouTube
These are recorded Chef AJ conversations, not live broadcasts. The publisher has disabled playback on other websites for both recordings, so an on-page player cannot play them here. Use the exact YouTube links below; availability on YouTube can still depend on its access rules.
Ron Weiss on Lyme disease — recorded conversation
▶ Watch the Lyme disease discussion on YouTube at 23:30 · Full original recording ↗
Source: Chef AJ, featuring Ron Weiss, MD. This historical conversation is linked for its place in Nathanael’s story, not as current medical advice.
Ron Weiss on iodine — recorded March Q&A
▶ Watch the iodine discussion on YouTube at 53:47 · Nathanael reference at 56:36 ↗ · Full original recording ↗
Source: Chef AJ, The Doctor Is In: March Q&A with Ron Weiss, M.D — Sinusitis, Urticaria, Iodine Deficiency & More… The exact recording is kept separate from channel uploads; this is not a playlist or a recipe cook-along.
✝️ Nathanael’s Faith: Jesus, Our Anchor, and Our Hope
A personal faith invitation from Nathanael: Riverside Fellowship in Hammond, Oregon, is my anchor church. Its teaching points to repentance, faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection, confession of Him as Lord, and salvation as God’s gift of grace. Receiving Jesus into our hearts means personally trusting and following Him.
Riverside’s salvation teaching · Its Jesus Class
My mom, Nina Delores Smith—Momma Eagle—is a devout Jesus follower. During my visit home for our special Jesus-loving reunion, I returned to Riverside for two Sundays. I treasure that homecoming and the faith and love woven through our family’s story.
Read the full explanation: accepting Jesus, resurrection, the Rapture, Tribulation, Christ’s reign, and everlasting life → The guide distinguishes Pensacola Christian College’s published position from wider Christian interpretations and Riverside’s own salvation teaching. Read Momma Eagle’s faith and reunion feature →
Our faith reflections are shared as an invitation. People of every faith and none are welcome and deserve compassionate care.
With Momma Eagle—Nina Delores Smith—may we renew our strength in the Lord and “mount up with wings as eagles” (Isaiah 40:31, King James Version): a poetic image of hope, not a promise of literal wings.
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” 
