Ohio

I am a health and wellness professional with a background and training in healthcare, lifestyle medicine, nutrition education, health coaching, and community health. My work focuses on helping individuals use evidence-based nutrition and lifestyle strategies to improve overall wellness, support healthy weight loss, reduce chronic disease risk, and better manage conditions such as diabetes and metabolic disease. With specialized training in plant-based nutrition, plant-based coaching, health education, and health literacy, I am passionate about translating complex nutrition science into realistic, easy-to-follow plans that fit everyday life. I focus on helping my clients understand food and discover their why for making lasting changes in their wellness journey.

I am whole food, plant-based nutrition certified nephrologist with The Kidney and Hypertension Center in Cincinnati, OH.  I have seen rate of function decline slow down in patients who have changed their eating habits. 

Dr. Keary O’Connor is a board-certified family medicine physician who is also a diplomate of both the American Board of Obesity Medicine and the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine. She has practiced in primary care for over 14 years and currently resides in Ohio. Dr. O’Connor is a graduate of Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine and served on active duty in the U.S. Army where she began to develop her passion for whole food plant-based eating and using lifestyle interventions as treatment options for her patients.

Training Institutions: Dr. O’Connor attended the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in Kirksville, Missouri and completed her residency at Metro Health Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was a Leadership and Integrative Healthcare Fellow at Duke University and received a Certificate in Medical Nutrition from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York and her Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate from the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies.

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Direct Primary Care allows me the opportunity to be the educator and teammate in care.
Throughout my almost 15 years of practice in our traditional healthcare delivery system, the idea of providing an excellent provider to patient relationship has been sold to patients by insurance companies and healthcare systems over and over again. In reality, that level of communication, trust and understanding is rarely attainable when the expectation is to see even 25 patients in one day, let alone the 30 or 40 patients that are being evaluated by one practitioner in some settings.

As the time we have for patients has decreased, the time required to be reimbursed by the insurer has increased. Insurance has dictated what good medical care is by deconstructing the patient-provider relationship and turning it into checkboxes. Clicking boxes is robotic, teaches us not to think for ourselves and generally does not in any way contribute to a functional relationship between patients and providers.

Direct Primary Care is the ladder I’m climbing to get out of those boxes so that I can truly help people. In this model I will be free to practice medicine in its most effective form. Instead of having 5 minutes to talk to my patient about what is really important to them, I will have 45-60 minutes to listen, gather information, educate and participate in shared decision making. In comparison to the almost 2000 patients I had as an employed outpatient primary care provider, my goal is a maximum of 500. My patients will have access to me without having to wait for 3 weeks and without having to explain their needs to several people before ever seeing me.

By making home visits and utilizing technologies such as secured messaging and virtual interaction, I can truly be the trusted resource, teammate, cheerleader, consoler and advocate that I’ve always wanted to be.