Suzan White thrives at helping others find peace of mind

After opening a box of Post-it notes which featured a design she had created, Suzan White had an epiphany. “I realized I could do better,” she said.

It was then that she decided to put aside her career in art for one in medicine. Today you can find her at the Howard Center where she is medical director for Howard’s Northern Vermont Outpatient and Spoke Services or at her personal practice, Tamarack Psychiatry.

White describes her career path as a meandering route.

“Those are always the best kind,” she said.

She went to college for art and worked for a time as a designer for the gift industry, creating artwork for posters, mailbox wraps and the aforementioned Post-it notes. She also worked as a snowboard instructor at Smugglers’ Notch.

After a car accident in the 1990s, White went to see an osteopath. The osteopath improved her back but told her that there was more healing that needed to be done.

“She could read something,” White said. “I’d had some adverse experiences growing up.”

White has become fascinated by the interface between mind and body. “I got to a place where I was pretty darn healthy after a rough start,” she said, “and I thought I could help other people.”

At the age of 40, White headed to medical school for a degree in osteopathy. She was pleased to be able to keep up with the technology after spending decades in her art studio. Her initial plan had been to do hands-on, manual manipulation work, but she fell in love with psychiatry.

White was fascinated by the healing process and worked with shamans and South American curanderas. She has a close friendship with a Yaqui elder who lives in Arizona and taught her about indigenous ways of healing and relating to the planet. She also studied with an Australian aboriginal grandmother, spending three weeks in the Outback sleeping outside, singing, dancing and exploring sacred sites.

Before medical school, White lived on the Champlain Islands, but she moved to Charlotte in 2016.

“Years ago, we’d been driving on the road where our house is,” she said, “and joked that this was where we wanted to live.”

White relishes her views of the Adirondacks, the ability to road and gravel bike near her house and neighbors who she joins while walking their dogs.

Since 2016, White has specialized in addiction. She was a medical director for clinics in Franklin and Grand Isle Counties at the Northwest Medical Center where she started the Hope and Recovery Program. She subsequently moved to the Howard Center and opened a private practice in Shelburne. White said she chose the name Tamarack Psychiatry because trees are considered a bridge between two worlds.

“I act as a fulcrum for healing,” she said. “I’m partnering with my clients. It’s like I’m holding the light, and they have the map. I work to help people find their own authenticity and find the way to a better place.”

The osteopath who helped White has retired, and White just purchased her old office on the Milton-Georgia border where she plans to open a second branch of Tamarack Psychiatry.

“I’m really interested in creating a place that will be supportive of people who are caring for others in a behavioral health sense,” she said. “I’m excited about building a space where providers and clinicians can come together and discuss what they’re leaning and how to support one another.”

White enjoys painting and practices a variety of martial arts, but she continues to thrive in her work.

“I feel fortunate to be doing work I really care about, helping people lighten their load and change their stories,” she said. “One of my mentors told me that patients would want to tell me how sick they were, but it was my job to make them see how well they were.”

White believes that everyone wants to feel safe on the planet, and it’s her job to help them find that sense of safety.