By Melissa Wagoner
When it comes to healthcare, double board certified, nurse practitioner Elizabeth Diaz believes knowledge is everything – it’s how she was raised.
“My parents always instilled that education is the only thing that’s going to get you through life,” Diaz said. So, at the age of 11, Diaz began volunteering at Silverton Hospital in the hopes of one day becoming a doctor.
“For me it was like, I want to go into medicine,” Diaz recalled.
Which meant taking every opportunity that came her way including becoming a certified nursing assistant at 15 – the youngest in her class – working in the Providence Benedictine Nursing Center’s birthing unit throughout high school. In her junior year, she became a certified pharmacy technician.
“I wanted to know more about how medications work,” Diaz said. “I knew, if I would be prescribing them, I wanted to know the why.”
Upon graduation, Diaz attended Linfield University’s nursing program, before eventually being hired as an Emergency Room nurse at the Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland. Diaz discovered the job to be a good fit, but 2017 she found herself ready to move on.
“I wanted to do more for my patients,” she explained. She went back to school, this time to become a family nurse practitioner, in the hopes of building something completely new in her hometown. Which is how, on Oct. 1, 2022, Blossom Beautifully Medical Aesthetics came into being.
“Skincare has always been a very important part of my life…” Diaz said of the decision to open a practice primarily focused on skin. “I had a lot of skin struggles in my life and then two years ago I started getting Botox. A lot of it was to boost self-confidence.”
Initially hesitant to seek out a treatment, Diaz did what she has always done, she learned as much as she could about the procedure.
“I went to a nurse practitioner, and it made me feel good,” Diaz recalled. “And so, I thought, why don’t I provide that in my little community?”
Now, on its first anniversary, Blossom Beautifully is doing just that, thriving as a part of Silverton’s downtown by offering enhancements like Botox as well as acne treatments and skincare and nutrition advice.
“It’s whole wellness care for men and women both – anyone who has skincare concerns and anyone who wants to have a boost in self-confidence and feel comfortable in their own skin,” Diaz said. “It’s a matter of educating the patient.”
“When a patient comes in – like your 50-year-old or mid-40-year-old – and they say, I have these fine lines. I say, tell me about your diet. Tell me about what you’re applying,” Diaz said. “A lot of it has to do with patient-centered care.
“When a patient comes here, I want them to know everything about the procedure they’re interested in,” Diaz said. “Because I love educating and being there for my patients.”
It’s a kind of transparency she believes everyone deserves regardless of gender, race or socioeconomic status. Which is why she keeps fees low and her office approachable.
“It’s always been a struggle for farm workers and moms to take time out of their busy day,” she said, pointing out that, before Blossom Beautifully opened, the nearest comparable practice was in Salem.
“My dream would be to make a difference in someone’s life,” she said, “to improve their mental health, help them on their weight loss journey and be able to offer more medical, non-surgical services.”
Blossom Beautifully Medical Aesthetics
305 Oak St., Silverton
971-343-1117
