Your First Visit to Wise Body
If you’ve been reading this newsletter, you probably know I don’t deliver healthcare as usual. But you may still be wondering what being a Wise Body patient actually looks like.
The best thing about how I work is that no two people will have the same experience, because it’s entirely individual to you. I take a midwife’s approach, letting your body lead. But there is a basic structure to how it works.
Every new patient starts with a Foundation Session. It’s a 75-minute appointment in my office in the Flatiron district in Manhattan. The appointment includes many of the basic features of any GYN appointment: medical history, discussion of your main concerns, and testing or an exam if needed. It also includes a deep dive into areas of your health that are not part of a typical visit. We’ll touch on not just health basics but also nutrition, exercise, sleep, mental health, focus and concentration, spiritual practice, pleasure and joy, and sexual health. The hope is that you will leave the Foundation Session with practical needs met, such as being up to date on your cervical cancer screening, as well as with a more expansive understanding ways to improve your health and wellness.
The Foundation Session may be enough for the time being, in which case you can continue to book visits with Wise Body as needed going forward. Or, if you’re ready for sustained, deep care, you can move into the Wise Body Passage: six months of comprehensive care that addresses body, mind, and spirit through individualized care planning, accountability, ritual, and community. The Wise Body Passage is the jewel of Wise Body, a container in which to create genuine partnership over time. But it starts with the Foundation Session.
Why I Created the Foundation Session
When I left conventional medicine, I wasn’t just leaving behind the pace of it. I was leaving behind a structure that made deep listening impossible.
The 15-minute appointment isn’t a bug in the system. It’s a feature. It keeps patients moving through, keeps billing volume high, and keeps providers from forming the kind of long-term relationships that make great care possible.
Every new patient in my practice starts with a 75-minute Foundation Session. Seventy-five minutes where your medical history and your life story both matter. Where I’m not just reviewing a chart—I’m listening for the thing underneath the thing. Where your “crazy” hunch about what’s causing your chronic BV, your sense that something shifted after a particular loss, the pattern you’ve noticed between your stress and your symptoms—all of it is welcome at the table.
This is not a luxury add-on to “real” healthcare. It is real healthcare. It is what medicine is supposed to be when it hasn’t been stripped of the elements that make it actually work.
One of the things I hear often from new patients is some version of “This might sound weird, but...” or “It’s probably not related but…”
And then they say something that sounds, to me, quite reasonable.
I want to hear all of it. Not because I’ll simply validate whatever you believe—I am a clinician, and I hold myself to rigorous standards—but because I know that the wisdom we carry about our own bodies is real data. It belongs in the room. It often holds the key to what no lab panel has been able to explain.
Wise Body exists at the intersection of the scientifically sound and the spiritually profound. Those are not opposites. They are, in fact, the complete picture.
Who This is For
You don’t have to have a diagnosis. You don’t have to know exactly what’s wrong or be able to name it in medical language.
The Foundation Session is for the woman who:
Has tried to get answers and keeps leaving empty-handed. You’ve done the appointments. You’ve had the bloodwork. You’ve received diagnoses that don’t quite fit, or you’ve been told everything looks fine while you keep feeling like it isn’t. You’re ready for someone who will actually sit with the complexity of your situation.
Is in the middle of a transition. Perimenopause. Postpartum. A significant health event. A life change that’s written itself into your body in ways you’re only beginning to understand. These thresholds matter, and they deserve more than a prescription and a six-month followup.
Has been told her intuition is wrong. You’ve been gaslit. You’ve felt the gap between what you know in your body and what you’re being told about it. You need a provider who will validate your inner knowing while offering the medical expertise and safety to actually do something about it.
Is simply done settling. You know you deserve better care than you’ve been getting. You’ve been looking for it. You’re ready.
What Happens Afterwards
The Foundation Session is a beginning, not just a one-time consultation. After your initial 75 minutes, you can continue with individual visits as your needs arise, or you can begin the Wise Body Passage. At the Foundation Session we will talk about what next step makes the most sense for you. If we’re able to address everything in one session, we will. If here are things you need that I can’t provide, I will refer you to someone who can help. If you would benefit from a deeper dive with me, I’ll explain more about what that would look like.
Are You Ready?
If any of this landed for you—if you’ve been waiting for an invitation to finally get the care you’ve always known you deserved—this is it.
Book your Foundation Session →
And, if you’re interested but not quite sure, you can book a free 15-minute Zoom consultation at the same link to talk over any questions you might have. I look forward to meeting you.
— Jane
Jane Riccobono, CNM, WHNP is a Certified Nurse Midwife and Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner with over a decade of experience in women’s health. She specializes in reproductive health, perimenopause, and the intersection of medical care and embodied wisdom. She is a mindfulness teacher, published author, and the founder of Wise Body Women’s Health.
Wise Body serves patients throughout New York State via telehealth and in person in New York City.
