Our Team

Meet our talented doctors and staff!

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Our story is a great one.

Dr. Nicole Sheehan has been practicing in North Carolina since 2004, setting up an integrative practice in the Charlotte area in 2013. In the process of offering holistic medicine to the Lake Norman area, she reignited her passion for veterinary medicine, fueled her desire to develop safer and more effective treatment strategies, and provided a community of caring veterinary individuals who love their jobs and their lives again!

Her love of the beach brought her down to Wilmington more often, where she found a group of holistic-minded clients and Dr. Nicolle Rubendall, a local veterinarian practicing a similar type of medicine right here in Wilmington. Together they have paired up to provide the same quality and consistent care with an integrative touch to the pets in this area. They could not be any happier to provide a place for loving pet people to take the best care of their furry family members as well as an amazing work environment for veterinary professionals to call home.

VETERINARIANS

Dr. Nicolle Rubendall

Veterinarian
Medicine, Acupuncture, Herbs, Spinal Manipulation

Dr. Kelsey Hom

Dr. Kelsey Hom

Veterinarian
Medicine, Surgery, Acupuncture, Herbs
Dr. Nicolas Pinkall

Dr. Nicolas Pinkall

Veterinarian

Patient Care Team

Christine Kibler

Christine's Bio

Bio coming soon!

Samantha Carroll, RVT

Samantha's Bio

Bio coming soon!

sarah

Nate Faul, RVT

Nate's Bio

Nate grew up in the small farm town of Waynesville, Ohio and moved to Wilmington, NC in 2020. Through attending Sinclair Community College, he became a registered veterinary technician(RVT) in 2014 but has been in the field since 2011. Through the University of Tennessee, he furthered his career and became a Certified Canine Rehabilitation Practitioner(CCRP) in 2016 and also got certified in Companion Animal Pain Management(CAPM) in 2022. He enjoys working with the geriatric and feline patients and providing alternative treatments to help them live their most comfortable lives. He also enjoys working with the sporting and working canines to help them recover from injuries and make sure they are at their peak performance.

Nate has 2 cats named Pete and Cao and a French Bulldog named Larry. While Nate loves all animals, he is a cat person at heart! Especially if they are tuxedo cats!

In his spare time he enjoys baking and sharing his baked goods with all of his coworkers. He also enjoys video games and rock climbing!

sarah

Sarah Bibey, Veterinary Assistant

Sarah's Bio
I grew up always having animals in our house and have known since I can remember that I wanted to work in the animal field. I moved to Wilmington from Winston Salem in 2010 and have been working as a vet assistant for 6 years and love living at the beach. I have a sweet 14yr old lab mix named Jack that I rescued when I moved to Wilmington and my Mila girl, a 6yr old pittie mix that was a foster fail a few years later.
Heather

Heather Hewett, Veterinary Assistant

Heather's Bio
Hi, I’m Heather! I was born and partially raised in Leland. I was raised by my grandparents, who were truck drivers, on the road, and even though I spent much of my childhood on the road, animals were never far from my heart. I currently own a small zoo with my husband and two children. Our zoo consists of 5 dogs; two Jack Russell mixes “Tia & Leo”, a Chinese Crested “Toshi”, a black Lab “Cora”, and a fresh additional of a collie mix named Bo Lin. We also have 2 cats, Prissie & Daichi, 2 ball pythons, 1 blood python named Blodreina (in photo), and two leopard geckos. Our house is never quiet and
neither is my life. In my free time, I am actively training Cora & Bolin in agility & rally obedience. I look forward to meeting all of your wonderful pets and treating them with the same admiration and fascination as all of the pets I have had the pleasure of meeting!

Heather is Fear Free Certified and uses special techniques to decrease stress and create a more enjoyable experience for your pets!

Ana Reus-Flores, Veterinary Assistant

Ana's Bio

I moved to the Wilmington area 3 years ago. As a child, I always knew I wanted wanted to grow up working with animals. I am now going on 10 years in this field and have never been happier. I have 3 fur babies at home: Chip my long haired chihuahua, Nugget my border collie, and my partially blind kitten Toph. Though I love all animals, I consider myself A Chihuahua whisperer, especially the spicy ones. I am also bilingual and love to connect with clients of the spanish speaking community.

Client Care Team

Jo Davis

Jo's Bio

Bio coming soon!

Management Team

Dr. Nicole Sheehan

Owner

Dr. Sheehan's Bio

Special Interests: General medicine and surgery, acupuncture, herbal and alternative medicine, orthopedics, cardiology

Education: The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine

Hometown: Strongsville, Ohio

Pets: Cooper and Skippy (dogs), Kaya and Simon (cats)

Dr. Nicole Sheehan has always had a love for and ability to communicate with animals since she was a young girl. After graduating from veterinary school and moving from Ohio to North Carolina, she felt at home in the area but not in her profession. She was blessed with mentors as a new graduate who pushed her to practice detailed and advanced medicine, but she wasn’t happy with her quality of life. As she started a family and also alternative treatments such as acupuncture, she sought different opportunities to improve her medicine and also her life. She found herself frustrated by inefficient systems and poor work cultures. Although her son was only one year old and she was pregnant with her daughter, she decided she had to do it differently. So she set up Whole Pet Veterinary Hospital in 2013 to create a place where she could pay her bills and still love going to work. Little did she know this would create so much more!

What resulted was a place where EVERYONE liked coming to work—where people are free to develop their skills and talents in an environment that is encouraging and supportive. Being free to learn and try new treatments, her clients were pushing her harder and harder to move beyond standard treatments that weren’t working to discover new medications that actually reversed the disease. As animals were healing permanently from chronic diseases, she joked that she was “the worse business owner in the world” because her patients were getting better and only needed to come back for yearly check-ups. She was wrong—her results brought her new clients from all over the state and eventually, phone consults all over the United States, as well as Europe, Australia, and Asia.

In seeing mostly second opinions (or what we lovingly call “sixth opinions”), with a careful history, thorough physical exam, and subtle changes in lab work, she has identified a handful of triggers for common diseases in animals. The mainstay of her practice is “Food First,” where high-level nutrition is used first to improve the health and balance of the body. Any signs of toxins or disease triggers are treated with herbal or pharmaceutical medication. While she identifies herself as a holistic Vvterinarian, she is willing to use whatever treatments give the best results, and so she still does surgery and chemotherapy when necessary. In the hospital, she will often use laser, ozone, PRP, and acupuncture to improve mobility and treatment outcomes.

After years of reversing chronic diseases that typically are considered irreversible, such as skin allergies, autoimmune disease, kidney failure, and paralysis, she has become convinced all diseases are treatable, including cancer. For example, she has successfully and fully treated her own dog’s heartworm disease with homeopathy, her cat’s kidney failure and hepatitis with herbal medicine, and her own autoimmune disease with herbs and meditation. This outlook on healing has greatly impacted the outlook of her clients and coworkers on their own health as well as the health of their animals. A common saying you will hear around here is, “Once you see it, you can never unsee it”.

Advanced Courses and Certifications:

  • Veterinary acupuncture
  • Chinese food therapy
  • Veterinary Chinese herbal medicine
  • Meridian autonomic testing (muscle testing)
  • Detoxification medicine
  • Tick- and vector-borne diseases
  • Abdominal and cardiac ultrasonography

Publications and Appearances:

  • Glycoflex National Commercial
  • VetriScience National Advisory Board
  • Veterinary Practice News
  • VetFolio Podcast
  • Fox News Rising
  • Charlotte Today

She recently has developed a way of sharing her treatment strategies outside of Whole Pet Veterinary Hospital through Nicole the Vet, where she highlights cases, offers classes to vet professionals, and speaks out about problems within the industry. Visit her on Facebook and Instagram at @nicolethevet and see videos on pet care and nutrition on YouTube at @nicolethevet. Be on the lookout in 2020 for her book on healing animals naturally, as well as new holistic veterinary hospitals in the area to serve more animals and people!

Emily Frammartino

Manager

Emily's Bio

Emily has been with the Whole Pet family since the beginning! She has a passion for helping our new hospital teams get established and learn our Whole Pet approach. Emily lives in Charlotte, but you will often see her smiling face in our Wilmington location helping out. Besides her passion for veterinary medicine, she has 3 furkids, 2 cats (LoLo, Ollie), and a dog named Archie!