Dr. Michael Ferri (’00) Helps Bring Catholic Healthcare to Nashville

“Medicine should be aimed at seeking the truth.”

This maxim is one of Dr. Michael Ferri’s (’00) fundamental principles, both in his own psychiatry practice and in helping found Fiat Integrative Health. 

A firm believer in an integrated approach to healing the human body, Dr. Ferri, a clinical psychiatrist in Tennessee, was excited when nurse practitioner Caroline Hartley, FNP, came to him in 2022 with a novel idea for a Catholic family medical practice, where providers could offer excellent healthcare in harmony with their faith. Within five weeks, Fiat Integrative Health opened its doors, and after a year, moved to a larger space to accommodate the clinic’s rapid growth. The practice is composed primarily of Catholic providers from all areas of medicine, and the facility features an in-house chapel open to staff and patients. 

“Fiat integrates family medicine, pediatrics, mental health, and other allied health professions, like physiotherapy and chiropractic care,” explains Dr. Ferri. “In starting Fiat, we wanted to give the providers a space where they can flourish together and have good personal and professional formation, but still be guided primarily by the truths of the Gospel. They are free to explore better treatment options that are more in line with what patients need and can sift through the evidence for treatments before prescribing them.” 

Dr. Ferri came to Thomas Aquinas College as a student in 1996 after completing the novitiate at the Legionaries of Christ Seminary in Connecticut, where he was inspired by several of his teachers, including Michael Van Hecke (’86), Martin O’Hara (’88), Bob Murphy (’89), and Josef Froula (‘92). While working on his Senior Thesis about the validity of the science of psychology, he decided to pursue a career in psychiatry.

“In starting Fiat, we wanted to give the providers a space where they can flourish together and have good personal and professional formation, but still be guided primarily by the truths of the Gospel.” 

“I was grappling with the decision to pursue more studies in philosophy or something more practical,” he says. “I have three relatives in psychiatry, so I was strongly pulled toward that field. There’s still a frontier of exploration in psychiatry that not only deals with the physical brain, but also the borderland of the soul, and the nature and development of the human person.” 

After graduating from the College, where he met his wife, Teresa (Barbarie ’00), he went back to Canada for medical school, then moved to Nashville, Tennessee to finish up his training. He and Mrs. Ferri are now the parents of nine children, including one TAC alumna and one current student. 

In addition to his work with Fiat, Dr. Ferri works as the medical director of InSight Recovery and Wellness, a mental-health clinic based in Franklin, Tennessee. His main area of focus is addiction treatment, though his practice also offers counseling and care for various mental conditions and disorders. He enjoys working with his team to broaden the scope of their care while upholding the tenets of Catholic teaching. “It’s been fun to develop protocols and practices that we can all agree with and commit to,” he says. “There’s a good, healthy demand for the kind of service, professionalism, and team approach that we embody.” 

Looking ahead, both for his own practice and for Fiat, Dr. Ferri hopes that the Catholic integrated approach to health — and especially mental health — will grow in size and accessibility. “There really isn’t anywhere in the country that you can go right now and find a holistic Catholic approach to medicine,” he says. “The dream is one day to have a Catholic treatment center of some sort that would be accessible to people from anywhere in the country, where they could receive an integrated and Catholic approach to their physical and mental healing, either in person or virtually.”