For Health and Humankind: Dr. Hilary Patzer '98 DACM, L.Ac

If you happen to play for the Minnesota Vikings and struggle with the aches and pains that come along with life in the NFL, chances are you’ve fallen under the spell of Dr. Hilary Patzer ’98.

“The needles I use are like light sabers—they’re magic wands,” says Hilary, the official sports acupuncturist for the Vikings. “I get to help the other person heal, and help their body touch in on what they need and flip those switches.”

Armed with tiny needles, Hilary can make huge changes to the body’s systems. For NFL players who contend with physical trauma on a daily basis, acupuncture—combined with massage therapy and neurological optimization—are the keys to durable, genuine recovery.

Dr. Hilary Patzer ’98 uses many different modalities in her practice, including dry needling, sports massage, cupping, fascial stretch therapy, sports performance-enhancing acupuncture, and more.

“It’s not just putting a cream on something and hoping the pain goes away,” Hilary says. “It’s actually taking the pain away by helping heal the tissue and also taking the pain signals away through the nervous system and the endocrine system and the hormonal system and the musculoskeletal system. It’s really so powerful.”

Hilary’s knowledge of those systems—and her crusade against pain—come from deep personal experience. An Idaho native recruited to Holderness for Nordic skiing, Hilary rose up to become one of the nation’s top young Olympic prospects in the early 2000s. But that early success came at a steep cost: after skiing for Middlebury College and then earning a spot on the U.S. Ski Team, her competitive drive eventually led to overtraining. Intense fatigue dogged her during the day, but she couldn’t sleep at night; even walking across a room caused her body to ache with lactic acid. Her race results cratered.

“Everybody knew me as Hilary the skier, and I didn’t know who Hilary was without that,” she says. “At that point in time, I had a lot of pressure, but I also had a lot of hope. Then all of a sudden I found myself on the second page of the results sheet, and I didn’t know who I was.”

Luckily, Hilary didn’t have to wait long to figure out who she was—or at least discover the person she would become. At the urging of her mother, she made an appointment with Joan Scheingraber, a former pro Nordic skier-turned acupuncturist living in Sun Valley. “I was fascinated with the medicine, and I loved my treatments,” Hilary says. “Although it wasn’t enough to push me over into the Olympics, I did find my passion and my path forward.”

Whole Body Healing

That path forward brought Hilary to Minnesota, where she earned a Master of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine from Northwestern Health Sciences University. In 2009, Hilary—who went on to earn her Doctorate in Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine—founded JADA Studios, a practice where she combines acupuncture, massage therapy, and life coaching to help athletes achieve peak mental and physical performance. Her integrative approach proved remarkably effective, attracting elite athletes and, in just a few short years, a job with the Vikings.

Today, Hilary splits her time between her practice at JADA Studios and her work with the Vikings—while still racing and competing herself. It’s a busy life, but one that suits her driven personality—a trait that propelled her to success at Holderness and beyond. It’s that same drive that helps her connect with the elite athletes she works with—competitors who aren’t so different from her younger self. In fact, she often passes on lessons she learned at Holderness. After one disappointing ski race, her coach, former Head of School Phil Peck, said something that helped her put things in perspective.

It’s the same advice she gives to her own patients, from high school basketball players to NFL linebackers.

“He said, hold on to the things you can change and let go of the emotion,” Hilary says. “Let go of what you’re feeling and just hold onto the things that you can change and change those.”

Originally published in Holderness School Today, Fall 2025.