"I mean, all of this was something that was a dream and I have always followed my dreams. When I thought about this practice I thought, this is what I am supposed to be doing.”

 

Growing up, Dr. Diane Aslanis was a self-proclaimed “nut.” She was always a leader, someone to take chances, always jumped in, and always followed her dreams. When she was younger, her parents always told her "that it can’t hurt to ask and it can’t hurt to try and if I fail, then stand up again." All throughout her life, she was always trying new things and exploring new possibilities, when she was a little girl, at one point she want to be an artist, then a flute player, then makeup artist, then a choreographer, then a photographer, then a micro biologist - she eventually found her calling in life, which involved none of those. 

 

Aslanis always lived in a big city. She grew up in New York and New Jersey and ended up living in New York for 20 years. Originally, she went to college to become and actress, received her degree theatre and did that for 8 years of her life before realizing her passion for acting was fading when her drive to go to auditions began to dip. 

 

"I didn’t want to audition anymore. I couldn’t care less when I had my next audition and thats when I knew I needed to do something different."

 

So with her adventurous personality, she immediately started trying to figure out her next goal - which she soon found would turn out to be her purpose in life. 

 

“I have always loved the human body and someone I knew was studying to be a massage therapists so I was like oh!” 

 

Then one day, while she was going to get acupuncture in New Jersey, her acupuncturist told her that if she wanted to go into massage therapy, she should apply to th highly regarded Swedish Institute in New York for massage therapy. So Aslanis took a chance and applied, all the while not thinking she would get in, and to her surprise - she did. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While attending school, she soon realized that her patients always “had to ask their doctors” for approval before getting things done on their bodies, which then sparked another goal in order to gain new opportunities. She set out to find a career that would allowed her to put her "hands on people and still do the medical stuff" all at the same time, and that way was to go to osteopathic school. So she went back to school for four years and got a degree in chemistry and eventually got into medical school at Rowan University (formerly the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey - School of Osteopathic Medicine), one of the nation's osteopathic medical schools.

 

“I just kept going back to school! Even now I think that I would love to go to Longwood and take a couple courses. I love going to school. It’s a blast!”

 

But then Aslanis' life plans changed dramatically, when she decided to go into the military after receiving a scholarship. While in the military, she served as an OBGYN lived in Alaska for three years and was deployed to Iraq for 4 months. But while in Iraq, Aslanis was not delivering babies, but instead, she was there on a mission to build and establish an OBGYN clinic and successfully did. After she established the clinic, she was then assigned to help surgeons and ended up doing trauma surgery for the rest of her deployment. 

 

“When they told me I was going to Iraq, I said ‘no I’m not’ and they said ‘yes you are’ and I said ‘no I’m not’ and we kind of went back and forth for a while. They said, this is the mission, you’re going to Iraq."

 

Her biggest success in life? "Staying alive." 

 

“When I was in Iraq, we got bombed about 5 times and so getting through that … people said that I should be so proud of my degree’s, my business, blah blah blah. The business is working because it is what I am supposed to do. The fact that I am still here and alive … I guess I can say that I am proud that I have maintained the essence of me through everything. It is very easy to lose yourself in work, in family, in children, in trying to please or be whatever."

 

After retiring from the military, Aslanis got a job in Connecticut, but it was just too much for her, who wanted to live in a place where it with a slower pace and where she had control over seeing her patients. Then Centra Southside Community Hospital in Farmville, Va. contacted her about a job - and she took it. Then after her contract at Centra was up after 2 years, she left the hospital, but stayed in Farmville where after realizing she had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and seeking help to cope with it, her biggest opportunity arrived.

 

"After going to Iraq I came back and it took me about 10 years to realize that I had PTSD. So after I finished working with no sleep for Centra for 2 years, I knew I couldn’t do that again. So I lived on unemployment and lived off my retirement funds for a year and went to therapy to try to figure out what I really went to medical school for and that is where this came.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aslanis eventually began to go after what she always envisioned she would have - a practice like this where I don’t start until 10 o’clock in the morning, and I get done at 7. I see one patient and hour. Being one who has "always followed her dreams," she bought a space, made her own rules and now runs the highly successful Holistic Gynecology and Women's Osteopathic Medical Care practice located at 110 4th St, Farmville, Va., the only of its type in the 8 surrounding counties. At her practice, patients can receive holistic healthcare that includes: osteopathic manipulation, pap smears, treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, well woman exams and adolescent gynecology.

 

“A lot of people told me that they would be too scared to do this (open her practice). When I decided to go to medical school people thought I was crazy, but I figured that if it was what I was supposed to be doing, the pieces would fall into place … and they did!”

 

 

N: What is your biggest failure?

Learning to recognize my limitations.

 

N: Would you have done anything differently?

No.

 

N: What are some habits that you think have made you successful?

Handle the piece of paper once. This is actually something I learned in the military. This is so you don’t have a whole stack of mail from 3 weeks ago sitting on the counter top. You handle that piece of paper once. You either throw it away or you do something with it. Start small. 

 

N: What advice would you give younger Diane?

Go for it!

 

N: What advice would you give to little girls or women who want to establish credibility and find success in your field?

It is really difficult, but you need to find the balance between playing the game and fitting into the expected norms and being aggressive and assertive and strong, and that balance is very difficult while you’re remaining true to yourself. So that compromise is difficult to balance because there will be times that you are told, and I have been told, that ‘you are too aggressive, you’re such a bitch, you're too assertive, you will never find a man’ because of being in the medicine and because of being a strong-willed woman. But then when you go to the other side and you feel like you have to please, then you feel like you are compromising who you are. So find a mentor, even if they aren’t in your field, there are a lot of strong, powerful women who provide excellent role models. 

 

 “Stay true to yourself and be strong at the same time. I don’t believe in the words 'supposed to' or ‘should.’ If it is right, it will fall into place. Trust your gut."