Ken DeBarth, RPA-C
Ken is a traditionally trained Physician Assistant, with over 25 years of primary care medical experience. He is a past president of the New York State Society of Physician Assistants, and served as newsletter editor for nine years. He has served on the editorial boards of three medical journals, authored numerous medical articles, and lectured on medical topics across the country. For two years he wrote the monthly column "Outer Banks PA" in Clinician Reviews journal reflecting on the human interactions that make up the art of medicine. He returned to the pages of Clinician Reviews in November 2004 with "Outer Banks PA-Revisited", scheduled for a quarterly column. Inspired by the work of physicians Larry Dossey, Mitchell Krukoff, Christine Page, and Rachel Remen, Ken has expanded his concept of health to include the MindBodySpirit linkages often overlooked in modern western medicine.

Ruth Fordon, MS, NBCC
Ruth has an MS in Counseling, is certified by the National Board of Certified Counselors, and is a graduate of The MentorCoach Foundations program. She has a private counseling practice and is a personal coach. She had a private practice for nine years prior to her move to Ocracoke Island in 1988. Ruth has lead and designed workshops in stress and burnout, communications, and human growth and development. She has extensive experience with alternative health modalities and a special interest in psycho-spiritual growth. Ruth has a wealth of experience in many fields, having worked as an EMT, business manager of a medical practice, owner of a printing business, owner of a bed and breakfast, and a real estate agent. She is the founder of the Delphic Institute, a non-profit organization supporting the arts, and the co-founder of Island Path. She sells her photographs of Ocracoke through out eastern North Carolina, and she took all the photographs used on this web site.

Michael R. McVay, MD
Mike is cardiologist and has been in practice for 25 years in Yankton, SD. He was awarded a Bush Medical Fellowship in 2000 where he studied how to integrate spirituality and medicine. During his fellowship he became a certified instructor in mindbodyspirit medicine through The Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington DC. He created The Center for MindBodySpirit Medicine which is located at Avera Sacred Heart Hospital in Yankton and is currently its medical director. He teaches stress reduction classes at the Center using a mindbodyspirit model. He is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of South Dakota School of Medicine. He helped establish The Healer's Art as an elective for the medical school. Created by Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, The Healer's Art is a unique course that helps medical students recognize and retain their compassion that brought them into medicine. He and his wife Ellen live, work and teach in Yankton, SD.

Ellen Rodman McVay , MSW
Ellen is the co-director of the The Avera Center for MindBodySpirit in Yankton, S.D. She has a Masters in Social Work, with 17 years of mental health counseling practice. Her interest in incorporating spirituality into health and mental health led to her training in Mind-Body Medicine at Harvard, as well as The Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, D.C. Ellen is also a spiritual director, trained at the Benedictine Peace Center in Yankton.