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By: Leah Velasco
Ifeoma has called New Haven home for nearly 16 years, but her journey toward creating a different kind of healthcare practice began long before opening her own doors. Drawn to Yale School of Nursing by its mission of “Better Health for All People,” Ifeoma entered the GEPN program in 2013 with a vision of providing inclusive, integrative care in communities with limited resources.
She also remembers GEPN as one of the hardest things she has ever done. The intensity of the program revealed a grit and tenacity that would become essential throughout her career. After graduating in 2016, Ifeoma completed a Nurse Practitioner Residency at a Federally Qualified Health Center in Berkeley, California, beginning a career rooted in community health.
“We’re not looking for a piece of the pie. We are creating a new pie.”
She later returned to New Haven and spent years practicing internal medicine at a community health center, developing expertise in complex care management while continuing to explore how allopathic medicine could be integrated with traditional practices, prevention, and self-care.
Over time, however, Ifeoma found herself constrained by traditional healthcare models. Productivity measured through RVUs, billing, and the number of patients seen did not reflect what she believed successful care should accomplish. She wanted time to understand how patients were responding—not simply whether another visit had been completed.
After leaving institutional practice, Ifeoma took time to consider what healthcare could look like if she built it around those values. Grounded in her spiritual practice and supported by her family, she became board certified in Lifestyle Medicine and ultimately founded Lifestyle Medicine New Haven.
Her practice integrates primary care with evidence-based approaches to nutrition, movement, sleep, stress management, and other lifestyle factors that can prevent or improve chronic disease. Just as importantly, Ifeoma has intentionally created a welcoming, non-sterile environment where patients—including those who have experienced medical trauma—can feel safe and participate in their care.
She accepts commercial insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid, preserving the commitment to accessibility that first drew her to community health.
Building something different has also meant learning how to sustain it. As a solo practitioner, Ifeoma has managed everything from patient care to technology and administrative work while exploring group medical visits, speaking engagements, and eventually a nonprofit arm to expand resources for underserved communities.
Technology, including artificial intelligence, is another tool Ifeoma approaches thoughtfully. She uses AI-assisted documentation and UpToDate to efficiently navigate expanding medical evidence and is interested in its potential for billing. At the same time, she remains mindful of AI’s environmental costs and the danger of allowing convenience to replace clinical reasoning and human discernment.
For Ifeoma, success is no longer defined primarily by productivity metrics. It is found in healthier patients, meaningful relationships, balance, community, and a practice aligned with her values.
Learn More About Ifeoma’s Practice
You can learn more about Ifeoma’s practice or connect with her through her website, Instagram, or LinkedIn:
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