From Critical Care to Holistic Care: The Story Behind Above & Beyond in Gilmer

ETX Uncovered · Gilmer, TX · Published August 22, 2026

By the age of six, Sandra Kirkpatrick says she already knew she wanted to work in medicine. She traces that impulse to childhood memories of helping care for her mother, who struggled with health problems. Even then, Kirkpatrick felt drawn to the idea of helping people heal.

That calling led to a healthcare career spanning more than four decades. She began as an EKG technician at Mother Frances Hospital at 17, later trained in ultrasound, became a nurse and spent years in critical-care settings, including trauma and burn units.

Her early work in ultrasound gave her a practical, close-up education in anatomy and physiology. Inside the hospital, she learned to read real-time images, recognize normal patterns and identify signs that something was wrong. Watching nurses work eventually prompted her to take the next step.

“I was very influenced by watching the nurses work,” Kirkpatrick said. “So I thought, you know what, maybe I’ll do that.”

She earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing and built a career in high-intensity environments—a chapter she describes with a laugh as her “adrenaline junkie” years.

Over time, though, her perspective on healthcare began to shift.

Kirkpatrick said she became increasingly concerned that medicine was relying too heavily on pharmaceuticals and symptom management. She began looking for approaches that considered the whole person rather than focusing only on a diagnosis or immediate complaint.

For Kirkpatrick, that transition was also spiritual. She believes God directed her away from conventional clinical work and toward integrative and holistic care.

Today, she describes herself as a holistic practitioner who recognizes that conventional medicine can have an important role, particularly when it is needed. But at Above & Beyond, her work centers on supporting health through nutrition, lifestyle, education, mental and spiritual well-being, and natural approaches she believes can help create better conditions for the body.

“We were meant to be self-healing creatures,” she said. “But you have to give it the right conditions.”

That belief shapes the practice’s emphasis on education. On the first Saturday of each month, Above & Beyond hosts a class designed to help participants build a natural medicine cabinet. Classes may cover herbs, spices, essential oils or teas, and participants create an item to take home.

Kirkpatrick wants clients to leave with more than a recommendation or product. She wants them to better understand their own health and feel more prepared to care for themselves.

“Preparation is not panic,” she said.

Teaching, research and continual learning remain central to her work. Kirkpatrick describes herself as a lifelong learner who is always reading, studying and seeking new information. One of the principles that guides her is simple: “We do good with what we know, but we do better as we grow.”

Faith is just as central to Above & Beyond as education.

Kirkpatrick does not see herself as the source of healing. Instead, she sees her role as creating a place where people can learn, seek support and make informed decisions about their health while leaving the outcome to God.

“I’m absolutely not the healer,” she said. “He is.”

That faith-based approach is woven into the clinic’s atmosphere. Kirkpatrick said conversations about health often become conversations about purpose, quality of life and spiritual well-being. While her faith is openly present in the practice, she said people from different backgrounds are welcome.

Her goal, she said, is not to pressure anyone into sharing her beliefs, but to offer information, encouragement and a space for people to explore their options.

“We are seed planters,” she said. “We are not seed growers.”

Kirkpatrick’s path to Gilmer followed the same sense of calling.

She was not from the area and initially knew little about the town. But when she began looking for a location for her practice, her oldest daughter found the property that would become Above & Beyond and urged her to see it. Kirkpatrick said her daughter immediately sensed something special about the location and asked whether she could feel the Holy Spirit there.  The property was accepted that same day, without negotiation. For Kirkpatrick, it became confirmation that Gilmer was where she was meant to build the practice.

Today, Above & Beyond serves clients from Gilmer, across East Texas and beyond. Kirkpatrick said some patients travel from Louisiana, while others have come from as far away as Alaska. Still, she credits personal referrals with driving much of the clinic’s growth. For Kirkpatrick, those stories are not evidence of her own power, but of the work she believes God is doing in people’s lives.

After more than 40 years in healthcare, she is still pursuing the purpose she says began in childhood: helping people heal.

The work simply looks different now. At Above & Beyond, Kirkpatrick’s approach brings together health education, natural wellness practices, nutrition, lifestyle support, faith and the belief that people are better equipped to care for themselves when they understand the options available to them.

“I love it,” she said of the work.

Why I Interviewed Sandra

I walked in expecting one thing and found another, and that is usually a sign there's a story worth telling.

Holistic care is easy to sum up in a word and move on. What that word does not tell you is that Sandra spent more than forty years inside conventional medicine first. Trauma bays, burn units, an ultrasound program that took two students a year. She can walk you through what happens inside a single cell when your body sets out to heal a cut. She did not turn away from the science. She spent a lifetime learning it and chose to point it toward the whole person instead of the paperwork.

ETX Uncovered exists to slow down long enough to look closer. Sandra is worth that. Whatever you believe about how healing works, it is hard to sit across from someone who has given her whole life to helping people feel better and not come away with respect.

Know a business owner building something meaningful in East Texas? I'd love to hear about them.

Sandra Kirkpatrick is a holistic practitioner based in Gilmer, where Above & Beyond hosts a natural medicine cabinet class the first Saturday of each month. Find her in the ETX Discovered directory.