Lesa Benton, AGPCNP-BC
Board-Certified Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner located in Portland, OR
About Lesa
Lesa chooses her work as an integrative primary care nurse practitioner so that she can witness individual growth, share power, and influence equity in our community. She enjoys caring for patients in their teen years through the end of life and is certified as an adult geriatric primary care NP. She is committed to celebrating and caring for the wisdom that her older adult patients share with her about the art of humanness in every imaginable walk of life. She experiences fulfillment from protecting and sharing sacred space with individuals who seek to understand and write their own narratives for their past, present and future selves while unfolding the unique beauty and complexity of their wholeness. Although she personally enjoys working within the healing languages of nutrition and digestion, movement, somatic body work, and behavioral tools for restoration of mental health and balancing the nervous system, she also understands and applies conventional allopathic medicine. She has specialized training in functional health foundations, digestive wellness and gut healing, chronic pain management, optimizing cognitive health, the impact of trauma on our physical bodies, and somatic tools for integration and coping.
Lesa’s love for using a wide variety of integrative health resources has been shaped by her philosophy that we are most well when we trust and consciously support the natural wisdom of our body, mind, and spirit to restore balance and grow. Her approach is to listen deeply and attend to the human needs of this complex work. It is her personal belief that each individual has the right to be cared for in the ways that are most meaningful for them, which means she cares about competent integration of health tools from many health philosophies, according to her patient’s preferences. She believes focusing on the goals that matter most to her patients leads to tremendous impact on their overall health and healing. A curious and always-growing practitioner, she will want to know about healing tools that you have discovered are useful and important to you.
Lesa grew up on the island of Kodiak, Alaska. Her personality was shaped by the extreme landscape and characters of a several decades career in commercial fishing, teaching to English language learners abroad and in the US, a career in somatic bodywork, hospice work, a long nursing career helping medically complex and vulnerable patients, and by her fortunate experience of motherhood. These experiences have taught her about caring for ourselves and each other in this ever-evolving story of the interconnected organism of humanity and our larger world. She sometimes goes by Lesa Joy, and you can see her finding her joy in the freedom of running up - and down - urban mountains, embracing her inner teenage boy with her son, camping, paddling and jumping in rivers, reading tarot and good books about integrative psychology, looking for an opportunity to dance in a costume, or enjoying coffee in her back yard with her fantastic partner.
Lesa chooses her work as an integrative primary care nurse practitioner so that she can witness individual growth, share power, and influence equity in our community. She enjoys caring for patients in their teen years through the end of life and is certified as an adult geriatric primary care NP. She is committed to celebrating and caring for the wisdom that her older adult patients share with her about the art of humanness in every imaginable walk of life. She experiences fulfillment from protecting and sharing sacred space with individuals who seek to understand and write their own narratives for their past, present and future selves while unfolding the unique beauty and complexity of their wholeness. Although she personally enjoys working within the healing languages of nutrition and digestion, movement, somatic body work, and behavioral tools for restoration of mental health and balancing the nervous system, she also understands and applies conventional allopathic medicine. She has specialized training in functional health foundations, digestive wellness and gut healing, chronic pain management, optimizing cognitive health, the impact of trauma on our physical bodies, and somatic tools for integration and coping.
Lesa’s love for using a wide variety of integrative health resources has been shaped by her philosophy that we are most well when we trust and consciously support the natural wisdom of our body, mind, and spirit to restore balance and grow. Her approach is to listen deeply and attend to the human needs of this complex work. It is her personal belief that each individual has the right to be cared for in the ways that are most meaningful for them, which means she cares about competent integration of health tools from many health philosophies, according to her patient’s preferences. She believes focusing on the goals that matter most to her patients leads to tremendous impact on their overall health and healing. A curious and always-growing practitioner, she will want to know about healing tools that you have discovered are useful and important to you.
Lesa grew up on the island of Kodiak, Alaska. Her personality was shaped by the extreme landscape and characters of a several decades career in commercial fishing, teaching to English language learners abroad and in the US, a career in somatic bodywork, hospice work, a long nursing career helping medically complex and vulnerable patients, and by her fortunate experience of motherhood. These experiences have taught her about caring for ourselves and each other in this ever-evolving story of the interconnected organism of humanity and our larger world. She sometimes goes by Lesa Joy, and you can see her finding her joy in the freedom of running up - and down - urban mountains, embracing her inner teenage boy with her son, camping, paddling and jumping in rivers, reading tarot and good books about integrative psychology, looking for an opportunity to dance in a costume, or enjoying coffee in her back yard with her fantastic partner.