our practitioners

Jennifer (Jenny) Corbin is a seasoned acupuncturist and the founder of Barefoot Doctor. She opened the clinic in 2009 after graduating from a 4-year Master of Oriental Medicine program in Albuquerque, NM, and after practicing in Philadelphia for 9 years.

Jenny's early work experience in Philadelphia as a clinician in a nonprofit HIV clinic, within a physical therapy center, and in her own private practice led to her conviction that she needed to find a sustainable way to practice acupuncture for both herself and her clients. She realized that nonprofits can lose funding, individual's health insurance often cuts them off from helpful therapies, and private treatment costs make acupuncture unaffordable to many. She found her solution through a training led by the founders of POCA, a supportive co-op of acupuncturists focused on bringing acupuncture to as many people as possible in a sustainable way. She chose Fishtown and its increasingly diverse community as the home for her clinic.

Jenny has over 20 years of experience in treating a wide array of complaints, and she greatly enjoys being able to meet a diverse range of health-related needs. She has focused much of her learning and practice for the past 15 years in the treatment of fertility, pregnancy, and women’s health, with both acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine. She also loves treating children!

Jenny is happy to live in and be an active part of the Fishtown community. Outside of her time in the clinic, she helped form a neighborhood co-op preschool, and has served as a board member for Friends of Hackett, a non-profit fundraising group for her local elementary school.

 

Melissa is a licensed physical therapist and registered adult and children’s yoga teacher.  She graduated from Duquesne University with a BS in Athletic Training and Chatham University with a doctorate in physical therapy in 2009. She has practiced in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Philadelphia treating children and adults for 13 years.  

Melissa’s early work experience was in urban hospital settings in which she felt limited by insurance companies and large-clinic systems. She became frustrated, wanting to be able to spend one on one time with clients to help them better connect with their bodies, but instead she was directed to hand them printouts of exercises and was expected to move on to the next client quickly.

In her practice, Melissa incorporates her yoga training and several holistic practices into her treatment sessions including mindfulness, meditation, breathwork, and bodywork in order to treat the whole person and connect the body and mind.  She works hands on to relieve “stuck” fascia, which is present throughout the body, and provides patients with the tools to empower their own self-healing at home.  Once fascia has been “unstuck”, Melissa’s work is able to focus more deeply on the specific area of concern.  In contrast to many experiences clients have with physical therapists, she is present and participating in 100% of your session, one on one!

Holistic physical therapy treatments are ideal for pain related ailments that interfere with your daily life and function and work well in conjunction with acupuncture treatments.  These may include:

• Back pain

• Neck pain

• SI joint pain in pregnancy

• Shoulder, elbow and wrist pain

• Hip, knee and ankle pain

• Plantar fasciitis

Melissa lives in and is active in the Fishtown/East Kensington community, participating in community gardening work as well as children’s yoga programming.

Charlie Blaskovich has been practicing massage for nearly 30 years, and has practiced in several neighborhoods in Philadelphia since 2016. Some of the therapy styles she incorporates into her sessions include injury rehabilitation, trigger point therapy, deep-tissue, active release therapy, relaxation, and Swedish massage. She also often incorporates the use of gua-sha (scraping) and cupping as adjuncts to manual massage.

Getting regular massage and bodywork can prevent future neck, back, and hip issues, and can aid body awareness and mindfulness. Charlie believes that self-care isn’t a luxury, but a necessity for physical and emotional wellbeing.