How a PA, a Nurse, and a 3:30 Idea Grew Into a Patient First Wellness Practice
The conversation begins before sunrise, which fits the spirit of the story: building something meaningful often happens in the quiet hours when few are watching. Kim and Stephen trace a line from ambulances, helicopters, and trauma bays to consult rooms, elimination diets, and patient texts that arrive at odd hours. The thread is service and curiosity. Stephen’s early years in emergency medicine shaped his speed of decision-making and comfort in chaos; Kim’s nursing and coaching background sharpened her long-view approach to change. Together, they decide that midlife is not a slow fade but a focused rebuild, and Thin Space Wellness is the workshop where medical skill meets daily habit. Gratitude to their listeners frames the tone: learning in public, inviting others to test and iterate their own health.
Stephen’s training at Wake Forest provided a hands-on model that mirrors their practice now: learn, debrief, try again. Group exams, self-directed rotations, and trauma-heavy experiences gave him range. Delivering babies on call and handling multi-patient shootings honed his adaptability, but an orthopedic injury nudged him out of ER work and into orthopedics. That pivot mattered. It proved that identity in medicine is elastic, and it taught him the value of cross-specialty skills. The same mindset helps their patients reframe setbacks: an injury becomes a reason to master strength, mobility, and nutrition, not a finish line. The couple’s years balancing orthopedics, teaching, and entrepreneurship gave them an unusual toolkit for solving practical problems patients face outside a hospital.
Entrepreneurship threads through their story with humor and candor. The “party bus Steve” era and a 100-foot yacht charter on Lake Norman seem worlds apart from lab requisitions and nutrition protocols, yet the overlap is real: logistics, relationships, and repeatable systems. They learned how to build experiences, handle risk, and keep promises. Those skills show up in the clinic as accessible communication, transparent pricing, and flexible scheduling across North Carolina and Colorado. By treating operations as patient care—because ease and trust reduce friction—they make behavior change more likely. Consistency is the quiet superpower: small wins, monitored often, layered over time.
The aesthetics chapter began as coverage for a colleague but unlocked a new lane. Learning injections, tackling Botox myths, and focusing on natural results helped patients feel congruent on the outside while they rebuilt from the inside. Aesthetics can be shallow when it ignores health; it becomes powerful when it reduces the stress of self-consciousness and fuels momentum. They position injectables as one tool among many, not a shortcut. When patients feel less distracted by a feature they fixate on, they often re-engage more deeply with sleep, nutrition, and training. Confidence supports compliance, and compliance changes outcomes.
Functional medicine anchors their clinical approach. Food as medicine is more than a slogan; it is a decision tree. They start with history, symptoms, and patterns, then use targeted testing like food sensitivity panels and metabolic markers to remove guesswork. Kim’s personal experience with ischemic colitis during endurance training became a case study: adjusting to paleo, rethinking fuel on long efforts, and eliminating triggers prevented predictable race-day crises. Patients receive similar frameworks: try an elimination protocol, reintroduce with intention, track responses, and refine with data. Dairy, gluten, and ultra-processed foods are frequent culprits, but the plan is personal, not dogmatic.
Support is the multiplier. They emphasize direct access, quick feedback, and a coaching tone that respects autonomy. Knowledge without guidance often stalls; guidance without knowledge feels paternalistic. They aim for both. Education on macronutrients and micronutrients pairs with lived advice on shopping, prepping, and travel routines. Movement prescriptions match reality: post-op constraints, busy seasons, and midlife recovery needs. The result is a model that lowers barriers. When setbacks come—and they always do—patients have a team that helps them pivot without losing momentum. That is the real value of Thin Space Wellness: skilled care in an environment built for real life.