Allegheny Integrative Medicine, LLC (AIM) was started in response to the need to shift the standard of primary medical care. This is not just about providing an integrative and individualized approach to care. It is about truly educating people about their health. Medicine is not delivered in a bottle of pills, nor are chronic problems understood solely from a blood test or an imaging study. Healing through medicine is based in relationship; relationship to self and environment. It is through the empowerment of education that we create the fundamental shift our world so desperately needs.
AIM was founded in 2019 by Julie Hare, MD. In a world of rapidly escalating chronic health issues, AIM seeks to help establish the new paradigm that is developing in primary care. By utilizing Western (or standard) Family medicine and Functional medicine, combined with Eastern medicine principles as well as North American herbalism, AIM offers a truly integrative medicine experience. This multifaceted, multi-sourced approach to a given problem enables the client and practitioner to address every aspect of being: that is body, mind and soul.
Nestled in the heart of Appalachia, AIM also provides a pristine location for healing. Clean mountain air without extreme elevations, easily accessible spring water sources, local farm raised foods and low EMF exposure are some of the highlights of our location.
AIM seeks to promote an infectious shift in mindset. When we are able to take control of our health and feel better than we are today, we change the world.
Our mission is to teach all humans how to heal themselves so they can teach others how to do the same.
Hard science brings tremendous understanding of the extreme importance of the microbiome of the human gut, as well as that of the soil in which we grow our food; of human metabolic processes and environmental toxins. Eastern (observational) medicine, specifically Ayurveda (the medical system of ancient India, still alive and well today) give the profound ability to see the whole person, individualize the healing approach and understand how we balance ourselves in terms of our environment. Herbalism, as well as Ayurveda, teaches not just about plants as medicine, but FOOD as medicine.
Standard medicine does not provide the integrative approach needed to actually help people heal. Most health care providers have no real understanding of food and nutrition and are therefore unable to provide education and guidance when it comes to diet. Most healthcare providers do not know how counsel patients when it comes to managing stress and release trauma. Today’s main-stream educated physicians and midlevel providers (Like NPs and PAs) do not understand the impact of environmental toxins. And even if these core aspects of health were well taught in schools, the modern medical system provides no space to deliver them. A 15 minute office visit is simply insufficient to assess a person’s full state of health and prescribe medicines to suppress symptoms. Modern health care offers little more than symptom suppression for chronic disease issues.
Allegheny Integrative Medicine’s purpose is to address these issues and work to change the way we approach healthcare, on the most fundamental level.
It is never too late. You can
always be better than you are today.
Julie Hare is a board-certified Family Medicine Physician and an Ayurvedic Health Counselor. She is currently finishing her second board certification in Functional Medicine. In addition to working with clients she is the physician at the rural health clinic in her local critical access hospital and serves as a Field Physician for WVU College of Medicine. Dr. Hare came to Pocahontas County, WV over a dozen years ago. She settled down in the mountains with her husband, daughter and stepchildren seeking the quintessential quiet and healthy existence that rural living offers. She has never looked back.
Primary care has been Dr. Hare’s passion since medical school. Becoming part of a small community only deepened that meaning. While in residency training, Dr. Hare began to see the impact of the exponential increase of chronic disease. This societal burden became glaringly apparent when she went into practice, Appalachia being one of the country’s most chronically ill regions. Alarmed and impassioned to understand the root cause of chronic conditions, she has pursued a deeper understanding of what is happening in our world today. This pursuit has taken many paths.
Dr. Hare lives and breathes her passion for health. She works hard to balance work and play. She lives off grid, grows and gathers much of her own food and medicine. Check out her IG.
Dr. Hare is a proud member of the AAPS. Hence, AIM, LLC operates under their Principles of Medical Policy, found here.
We want to hear from you.
Write to us, ask questions, tell your story.