Sharon McDonough-Means, MD
– Dr. Sharon or Dr. M&M – the names the children have given me!

A pattern of my life began to unfold then – being inspired by and drawn to “frontier” thinking and serving the underserved. I helped to develop and began practice in the first HMO in Indiana and a public health clinic. Our family then moved to Illinois for 4 years. There I worked with a University of Illinois affiliated hospital in Park Ridge, helped to create a new pediatric Ambulatory Care Center for residency training and initiated a resident rotation in developmental-behavioral pediatrics.

Developmental behavioral pediatrics was then a relatively new concept – inspired in me by my pediatric residency program director, Dr. Morris Green – a true visionary in bio-psychosocial pediatric health. In Iowa, my “home” for nearly 20 years, my commitment to developmental pediatric care deepened:

• completed a 2 year fellowship at the University of Iowa
• began a new developmental pediatric practice with a large, multi-specialty group in Dubuque
• then began a small private developmental practice in Des Moines.

All brought the many business challenges as well as the real need for care and support for children with special health care needs and their families.

During those Iowa years, major life changes and challenges led me to search for deeper meaning in my personal health and spiritual life and ultimately shaped my professional goals and practice.

I learned new skills and began my journey into environmental health. Much support came from health care practices that I had not known existed – a journey inspired by my son’s quest into the Yoga sciences and naturopathic medicine. Beginning study of non-conventional medical resources and collaboration with an array of community professionals, led to the development of a week-long Wellness Celebration at my sons’ local high school – an awakening for students, faculty and some parents at the school as well as for me. In search of learning more about “non-
conventional” or Eastern healing traditions, I served as a developmental pediatrician with the US military, living in Seoul, Korea for a year, providing services to military families there and throughout the peninsula. That precious year provided travel in Asia, including a visit with my son in India, the opportunity to experience the people and culture, to grow in my own spiritual life and to learn a bit more about other traditions of healing. To my surprise, I learned also that often those in the Eastern cultures have become just as enamored with our Western “non- conventional” ways as we are of theirs! I continued y search for knowledge (perhaps wisdom, even) by returning “home” – with an awareness that I did not want to surrender the precious heritage I had been given in my Western conventional medical training but wanted to expand and perhaps shift my perspective.

For those reasons, I was drawn to the University of Arizona’s Program in Integrative Medicine – the only fellowship that incorporated solid education in Eastern systems of health care with the familiar conventional medical knowledge and also offered a new way of thinking – a paradigm shift, if you will. My move to Arizona and completion of the fellowship, thus began my “return to my paternal family roots” and my love affair with this special place. I am actively practicing as an integrative developmental pediatrician and am also engaged in pediatric integrative medicine research [see research link]. My enjoyment of the stimulation of the academic environment and the challenge of research was another life surprise – one of the gifts to me of the fellowship.

My move to Arizona in 1999 and completion of the fellowship, thus began my “return to a part of my paternal family roots” and my love affair with this special place. I continue to practice as an integrative developmental pediatrician and have also been engaged in pediatric integrative medicine research [see research link]. I am truly grateful for this present place in my life’s journey.