Dr. Laurel Gropper

  Laurel Gropper is a board-licensed primary care Optometrist with extensive training in functional medicine / personalized lifestyle medicine, a Certified Wellcoaches Health and Wellness coach, a FGP-certified Flow performance coach who embraces embodied living and a healthy lifestyle of food, exercise, connection, and awakening to the present moment. 

  Her roots began in New York City with an active exploration of the physical sciences, sports, music, ballet, and the serene outdoor environment of upstate New York. Relocation to North Carolina provided an opportunity to work as a functional optometrist in her private practice, Chapel Hill Eyecare. During this time she deepened her studies in personalized lifestyle medicine with The Institute for Functional Medicine, Advanced Applications in Medical Practice, NOLS wilderness medicine, and Women Are Not Small Men training with Dr. Stacy Sims. She also completed training in alternative and integrative therapies including reiki, holotropic breathwork, meditation, and advanced yoga teacher training.

  She brings her skills of curiosity, empathy, and compassion to each practice moment, creating partnerships with her clients to empower them to find their best possible solutions. She enjoys meeting the visual and medical needs of patients ranging in age from infants to geriatric. This includes routine treatment for refractive problems, binocular concerns, specialty contact lenses, and ocular disease, including diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, macular degeneration, and chronic dry eye. She is equally open to the integration of functional medicine into the treatment regimen when it falls within the scope of optometric practice. She is pleased with the co-management among local specialty ophthalmologists and primary care physicians for patients' ocular surgical needs. She also has an extensive network of integrative and complementary medicine practitioners with whom she frequently collaborates.

 

When Laurel is not working at the office, she enjoys her daily morning practice, yoga, kitesurfing, stand-up paddleboarding, strength and mobility training, gardening, playing with her band, and African drum circles. She loves to laugh and find philosophical meaning in the chaos of this world.

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Education and Training

• Awarded the Dr. John D. Robinson Award for Clinical Excellence in the practice of primary eyecare and ophthalmic medicine - November 11, 2024

•  Institute for Functional Medicine APMs: Immune, Cardiometabolic, Environmental Health, and Gastrointestinal

• IFM - AFMCP- Applying Functional Medicine in Clinical Practice - completed certification

• IFM: Resistance, Resilience, and Recovery

• Women Are Not Small Men Course- Dr. Stacy Sims- completed

• Menopause course- Dr. Stacy Sims- completed

• Cogence Immunology - Dr Sam Yanuck - in progress

•  AAPM (Advanced Application of Medical Procedures) in Environmental Toxicology,
  Gastrointestinal Disease and Cardiology

• Wellcoaches - Certified 2023 Health, Wellness lifestyle coach

• Recode- Dr. Dale Bredescens- in Progress

• Flow Genome Project - Leadership and performance coach with distinction

• Advanced Yoga Teacher Training

• 250-hour Yoga Teacher Training.

• Studied alternative therapies including Reiki- level 1 and 2 training, Holotropic breathwork, Vipassana Insight meditation, and nutritional strategies.

• Ocular disease management – Pennsylvania College of Optometry.

• Ownership of Chapel Hill Eyecare - 1993 - 2017

• Ownership - Dr Laurel Gropper - Philadelphia , PA - 1982-1993

• 1982 O.D. / State University of New York (SUNY) College of Optometry - Cum Laude