Theresa Andrea (Dre) McAuliff, RN

In an era when modern medicine often intervenes late - after symptoms harden into diagnoses - Theresa Andrea McAuliff, RN, is quietly reshaping what care can look like when it begins earlier, listens longer, and treats the whole person. A critical care nurse by training and a prevention-minded clinician by conviction, McAuliff represents a growing but still uncommon archetype in American healthcare: the nurse as systems thinker, educator, and architect of long-term health.

McAuliff’s clinical foundation was forged in intensive care units, where she spent over a decade managing complex, high-acuity patients. It was there, at the sharp edge of medicine, that she began to notice a troubling pattern. Many of the illnesses she treated were not sudden or mysterious, they were the cumulative result of years without education, support, or preventive intervention. “We’re excellent at sick-care,” she often says, “but far less practiced at true health-care.”

That realization became the seed for Elixyr Labs, a longevity-focused health clinic she founded in Sacramento, California. The clinic operates through a collaborative care model, with McAuliff leading patient education, program design, and clinical operations in partnership with a nurse practitioner and two doctors who provide prescribing authority, clinical oversight, and governance. This team-based structure ensures care remains both innovative and holistic while staying fully aligned with regulatory and medical standards.

At Elixyr, McAuliff blends rigorous clinical standards with a deeply human approach, offering data-driven, individualized care that spans hormone optimization, metabolic health, sexual wellness, medical weight management, and IV nutrient therapy. The clinic is intentionally designed not as a place for quick fixes, but as a space for education, partnership, and sustainable change.

What distinguishes McAuliff’s work is not a rejection of conventional medicine, but a disciplined expansion of it. Her model integrates evidence-based medical therapies with fitness, nutrition, and lifestyle strategies—adding tools thoughtfully rather than reflexively. “If medication is indicated, it belongs in the toolbox,” she explains. “But it should never replace education, movement, nourishment, or agency.”

Her dual training as a registered nurse and certified personal trainer and sports nutrition coach allows her to approach women’s health multidimensionally - bridging physiology with real-world behavior. This perspective is especially relevant in midlife care, where hormonal transitions, metabolic shifts, and identity changes often collide, yet are still poorly addressed by traditional systems.

Under McAuliff’s leadership, Elixyr Labs has incorporated advanced technologies such as the T-Shape 2 system, supporting lymphatic health and tissue remodeling for patients navigating weight loss and the inevitable hormone changes that come with age making stubborn fat that much harder to beat (estrogen and testosterone loss in perimenopause and menopause in women, and age-related lower testosterone in men).

These tools are positioned as adjunctive therapies, enhancing comfort, recovery, and adherence rather than replacing foundational medical care.

McAuliff is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Nursing, with plans to become a Nurse Practitioner, and remains actively engaged in professional advocacy through organizations such as the American Nurses Association. Her practice is informed by close collaboration with experienced clinicians, including Jennifer Cooper, NP, and physicians Jonathan Kaplan MD and Jonathan Hinds, MD, whose guidance and partnership have supported the clinic’s clinical integrity and growth. In 2022, she founded Small But Mighty, a nonprofit dedicated to building tiny homes for unhoused individuals, addressing health at its most foundational level: safety and dignity. Currently, she is developing the curriculum for Coffee Conversations and Community, an educational initiative at UC Davis Aggie Square aimed at demystifying GLP-1 therapies and promoting responsible, informed use of emerging metabolic treatments.

Her path into preventive medicine was shaped not only by ICU experience, but by early work in a critical access hospital in rural Oregon, where limited resources demanded creativity, autonomy, and deep patient trust. Those lessons - how to do more with less, and how education can be as powerful as intervention - continue to inform her practice today.

Outside the clinic, McAuliff lives the balance she advocates. She cycles, strength trains, hikes, cooks, reads science for pleasure, and prioritizes time outdoors with her dogs. These pursuits are not hobbies in opposition to work, but extensions of her belief that longevity is built through daily, sustainable choices - not extremes.

Through Elixyr Labs and her broader community efforts, Theresa McAuliff exemplifies a quieter kind of innovation in healthcare - one rooted in collaboration rather than hierarchy, and driven by integrity, curiosity, and a commitment to restoring prevention, education, and human connection to the center of medicine.

• Associate of Applied Science (AAS), Registered Nursing – Portland Community College
• Additional coursework at Linfield University
• Currently pursuing Master of Science in Nursing (MSN), Western Governors University (Nurse Practitioner track)

• CCRN (Critical Care Registered Nurse)
• TNCC (Trauma Nursing Core Course)
• Certified Personal Trainer
• Certified Sports Nutrition Coach
• BLS (Basic Life Support, American Heart Association)
• ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support, American Heart Association)

• DAISY Award Nominee (Adventist Medical Center – Portland)

• American Nurses Association (ANA)
• Phi Theta Kappa

• Founder of nonprofit organization building tiny homes for unhoused individuals
• Developer of “Coffee Conversations and Community,” a GLP-1 education program hosted at UC Davis Aggie Square