Beth DuPree MD of Suburban Philadelphia on Life, Lessons & Legacy

We recently had the chance to connect with Beth DuPree MD and have shared our conversation below.

Good morning Beth, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: What is a normal day like for you right now?
From breast cancer surgeon to Baba!! Currently my normal day is absolutely amazing. I am still practicing breast cancer surgery, part time on the east coast in Suburban Philadelphia with Comprehensive Breast Care Surgeons of Redeemer Health. This is the practice I started decades ago and have been commuting from Sedona to Pennsylvania since 2023. Don’t get me wrong, I have loved my career as a breast cancer surgeon, but the greatest gift of my life is being able to help my children raise their brand new baby girl and participate in her early development. Initially, the plan was to watch her through the transition period when my daughter-in-law went back to work as a second grade school teacher. I know how I felt when I had to return to my surgical residency five weeks after my first son was born and six weeks after my second son was born. It was soul crushing, but my sister watched our first son and Joe was home with our second son. I did not take the opportunity to be home with them full time as my medical school debt was just crushing and I didn’t see how I could pay it back without completing my surgical residency and practicing medicine as a surgeon. Being given this opportunity to be fully present with our beautiful granddaughter as she progresses each day, is literally life affirming every minute. It is the best job I have ever had. To quote my dad and Confucius,”Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life”. So is caring for my granddaughter work or a job, NO it is pure joy.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am board-certified in general surgery and integrative and holistic medicine with thirty-eight years of experience in the surgical care and management of breast cancer. I currently work part time in the surgical oncology practice I started at Redeemer Health, Huntingdon Valley PA, a Cooper- MD Anderson Cancer Affiliate. I graduated from Hahnemann University in Philadelphia, now called Drexel University College of Medical. My undergraduate degrees are a BA in the history and philosophy of science and a BS in behavioral neuroscience and from the University of Pittsburgh. I completed my general surgery residency at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia and have served as an adjunct assistant professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania training young breast surgical oncology fellows.

My career move to Arizona, in 2017, challenged me mentally, spiritually and emotionally. Without going into the exact details, that healthcare experience was a disruptive life experience that opened a door to deep inner healing. I have come to “bless the thing that broke me down and cracked me wide open” as I was guided through my personal plant medicine experience to attain a Certificate in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research from CIIS, MAPS and Synthesis Institute.

Currently I am working with transformative technologies and companies that question medical dogma and push the envelope of western medicine to promote mental well-being, address the mental health crisis and opioid addiction. In addition, I have been organizing healing retreats utilizing plant medicines therapeutically in a safe, legal set and setting.

As a medical advisor or CMO for disruptive healthcare technology companies, I have the opportunity to “be the change” I wish to see in healthcare. Innerstill Health, Gateway Sciences and Relief Sciences offer scientifically proven alternatives to traditional western medical interventions. Whether I am utilizing bioelectric medicine to harness the the healing power of Vagus nerve stimulation to regain bodily homeostasis or utilizing the Signal Relief patch to “dampen” or dissipate the pain signals with out narcotics or supporting the body with vitamins and micronutrients delivered via buccal absorption to avoid the first pass through the liver, all roads lead to improved health and wellness.

I have been married to my husband Joe for thirty-eight years and I am so proud of two grown sons Tom and Dean who are thriving with their young families.

I love being an inspirational speaker whether I am the keynote or on a panel discussion group. Having the opportunity to speak and open the hearts and minds of those in the audience is an opportunity to plant a seed of change and inspire them to be the change they wish to see in the world.

I am passionate a advocate for promoting true healing of the body mind and spirit of all her patients and a true cancer survivorship champion. In 2007, I started my non-profit The Healing Consciousness Foundation which provides healing services free of charge to breast cancer survivors. Proceeds from my first book, The Healing Consciousness : A Doctor’s Journey to Healing has support this effort. I am immensely proud of my second book, published by Blue Hat Publishing, which will be released 11/11/25, Shifting Gears: Living Life with Intention which shares my insights that I have gained as a healer who chose to be a surgeon in this lifetime.
From the back cover:
When life throws you off course, you have two choices—drift or shift

“Dr. DuPree has spent over three decades on the front lines of healthcare facing life and death —empowering women and men facing breast cancer, guiding families through fear, and witnessing the raw power of the human spirit. A trailblazing breast surgeon and integrative medicine physician, she understands that the surgery she performs simply addresses the physical body. For Beth, true healing demands courage, presence, and a willingness to shift the way we live. Founder of the Healing Consciousness Foundation and certified in psychedelic-assisted therapies, she now brings her hard-won wisdom to Shifting Gears : Living Life With Intention, a bold and deeply human guide to embracing change, pursuing your life’s passion and purpose… Shifting Gears will inspire you to live your life with intention.”

Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. Who taught you the most about work?
Both of my parents instilled in me an incredibly strong work ethic. I was raised in the Lutheran faith with strong Protestant values of diligence, discipline, and frugality. Cannot say that I have lived a great example of frugality once my medical school loans were paid off, but I believe that I have provided an opportunity for those in need to find true healing through my foundation, medical mission trips and community service.

Both of my parents were born in southern York County, Pennsylvania on working farms. My mother left formal education in 8th grade as she needed to work to help support her family and went to work in a sewing factory. My father graduated high school after 11th grade and enlisted in the army. He served in Korea as a communication officer specializing in Morse Code. They met at a firehall dance and sooner than later they were pregnant with my brother Bart, got married, as that is what you did in 1951 when you get pregnant and proceeded to have 7 children in 10 years (I am the seventh of seven).

Dad became a police officer in York and mom raised the seven of us. Raising seven children is expensive on a police officers salary therefore, Dad began working part time doing cement work to supplement his income. He left the force after 18 years, just two years before he could have had a pension and started his own company Baughman Construction. All six of my sisters and my only brother worked in the business over our summer breaks. Manual labor is not easy and it teaches you many valuable lessons.

My father encouraged each of us to follow our passions in life and college was an option but not pushed upon us. If we chose college as our path, we were expected to have a clear goal in what we were being educated to pursue. As the youngest, dad realized that I was his last chance to expand Baughman Construction. He wanted me to become a plumber as it was a good trade, paid well and clear pips are a necessity in everyones life.

I chose to become a human plumber instead as I needed to follow my passion as a healer. Most importantly he instilled in me that the only limitations that I have in my life are those I place on myself. What a wise man Irv Baughman was! He also insisted that before I attained my drivers license that I was proficient in driving a manual transmission, ie know how to shift gears! His was practical as he didn’t want me to be somewhere and have the designated driver for the night have one too many drinks and I not be able to drive their car safely. Sage advice.

My second book Shifting Gears is dedicated to my mother and father as they taught me the value in a hard days work, instilled in me that I was capable and able to to anything I set my mind to and that when there is a bump on the road or a sharp curve, instead of drifting I can shift gears to navigate my journey safely.

What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
At the age of seventeen, I lost my brother in an instant when an underage drunk driver ran a stop sign. His aorta was severed by the steering wheel as we did not have airbags in 1978. In literally one heart beat my entire world view changed. My healing journey has been intense and with each wound, my spirit grows stronger and my faith deeper. For the first few years I questioned my faith as I could not believe that a loving God would inflict such pain upon my parents.

My career in healthcare as a surgeon has presented me with great challenges and through each adversity the universe throws my way, my soul grows and expands. My years practicing in Sedona were the most challenging in healthcare delivery and I have come to “bless the thing that broke me down and cracked me wide open”. I could have gone along to get along in healthcare delivery, but being true to my patients, the Hippocratic Oath and to my soul, allowed me to move into a space that I NEVER would have gotten to without that adversity. Plant medicine was not on my to do list and I didn’t even know how to spell psilocybin in 2019.

I was in the middle of reading “How to Change Your Mind” by Michael Pollan when I had my first plant medicine experience. I thought the book was going to be about changing your mind about food as I had read “Food Rules” and Omnivores Dilemma”. Having only listened to the first few chapters and researching psychedelic therapy, Johns Hopkins and Bill Richards, I felt that I was being guided to find healing for the PTSD that I was experiencing being part of the dysfunction of a health system.

A vision quest to the dessert in January 2020, literally weeks before the COVID pandemic, change my world view and once you see you cannot unsee.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
WOW!! What a loaded question.

The lie my industry tells itself is …Healthcare is about healing. Healthcare has become the biggest business. I believed there was an art and science to healthcare not simply a “pill for an ill” and my profession has forgotten this.

Healthcare has become transactional in many ways. Physicians and nurses are seen as cogs in the medicine money machine. We are necessary but not as valued as we once were when I started in healthcare in 1983. I may sound cynical, but the changes I have seen in how we focus on treating diseases and not healing our patients is disturbing.

My formal medical school education and surgical residency training, taught me how to take a medical history, examine a patient, evaluate lab results and read x-rays. Once I had a sound diagnosis, then I would skillfully perform surgery to remove or repair the physical body. That addresses the body, but not the emotional and spiritual aspects of the art of healing.

I have been on a path for decades utilizing an integrative approach to patient care and I can honestly say that the COVID 19 debacle was my MASSIVE wake up call. Follow the science? or Follow the SILENCED!

I went into medicine because I am a healer that chose to become a physician and specifically a breast cancer surgeon as I felt that I could practice the science and the art of healing. But unfortunately the “business of healthcare”, has lost its soul and the healing art of medicine is not longer valued.

Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What do you understand deeply that most people don’t?
I understand, or better said have a deep conviction, that as souls inhabiting this planet at this time, that we are all connected spiritually to one another. There is a collective consciousness that I knew existed, ,but through my deep spiritual inner journey of healing I know this to be true with every fiber of my being.

Although our physical bodies are so called dense “meat suits” our soul is eternal and the energy, life experiences and time we share with our loved ones is priceless and should be treasured. At the end of the warranty on our bodies, what we get to keep is our soul and the energetic connections to others that we have shared this journey with.

The material world is just that material.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.drbethdupree.com
• Instagram: @drbethdupree
• Linkedin: @drbethdupree
• Twitter: @drbethdupree
• Facebook: @drbethdupree
• Youtube: @drbethdupree

Image Credits
Nico Barrazza, Dean DuPree