Society Insider: Wilhelmina and Ben O’Keeffe launch longevity and wellness clinic in Auckland
Man about town Ricardo Simich brings you Society Insider. This week, a broadcaster and rugby ref couple are launching a new wellness venture in Takapuna.
Broadcasting star Wilhelmina O’Keeffe is moving into the longevity medicine industry with two doctors, one of whom is her husband, Ben.
Best known as an international rugby referee, Ben, 37, tells Society Insider that 90% of the people he meets don’t know that his original and primary career path is in medicine.
Ben, who specialised in ophthalmology in Wellington after university, moved to Auckland three years ago to be with Wilhelmina, 35. He transitioned into musculoskeletal medicine, working alongside Dr Jordan Davis at the MSK Institute as a training registrar.
Ben and Davis, 38, met when they were studying to become doctors at the University of Otago 18 years ago.
The O’Keeffes and Davis are now teaming up to launch a new medical testing service called Vitalis.
Auckland-born and raised Davis lives with his fiancee, Kirsty, and their two young daughters in Castor Bay.
“Jordan runs the MSK (Musculoskeletal) Institute at the AUT in Albany, where his focus is on musculoskeletal medicine after an extensive background in orthopaedics,” Ben says.
“Working there together, the idea for Vitalis really started to take shape, and we started servicing customers from [MSK] recently.”
At Vitalis, after a consultation with a doctor, customers have access to thorough testing and scans, including cardiopulmonary (VO₂ max) testing, grip strength, biomarkers, and bone density scans, for $1900, with a prestige package at $4400, as an optional add-on for a full MRI.
“Essentially, it’s a full suite of tests and scans that act like a warrant of fitness for your health,” Davis says.
Society Insider spoke to the O’Keeffes as they were strolling the streets of Tokyo. Ben is refereeing the Nations Championship test match between Japan and France on Saturday.
The couple are based on the North Shore and preparing to open Vitalis in its own clinic in Takapuna in September.
“I am working on the marketing for Vitalis, while Ben and Jordan are busy organising their 290sq m medical suites at the Fred Thomas building,” Wilhelmina says.
Ben is excited to be working with his wife of eight months and says having something to build together is really helping their relationship.
“Up until this point, we’d both had our own separate working lives, so this brings together the skills we each have into one direction,” he says.
This year Blenheim-raised Ben was made an ambassador for the Fred Hollows Foundation NZ, specialising in avoidable blindness.
He is a director and owner of Otago Vision Specialists in Dunedin and Queenstown.
More than a decade ago, he co-founded oDocs Eye Care and later expanded those services to non-surgical cosmetic treatments with oDocs Aesthetics, specialising in anti-wrinkle injections and skin bioregeneration treatments.
The newly redeveloped, purpose-designed medical, health and office hub where Vitalis will be based has been designed by Warren and Mahoney Architects and is on Takapuna’s Fred Thomas Drive.
Ben already has a clinic in the Fred Thomas building, and Davis will open a second MSK Institute alongside Vitalis.
MSK offers tests including radiological imaging facilities for joints, bones, tendons, ligaments and nerves, with treatments such as shockwave therapy and steroid and plasma injections.
Wilhelmina says she and her husband recently got Oura Rings to keep track of their body metrics, sleep and steps – which is a more basic version of what they hope to achieve with Vitalis.
“What we’re trying to do is open the door for people to get real information and knowledge around their baseline health – where it currently sits and what they can do to improve it - bringing the kind of performance medicine traditionally reserved for elite athletes into everyday healthcare,” says Ben.
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Ricardo Simich has been with the Herald since 2008 where he contributed to The Business Insider. In 2012, he took over Spy at the Herald on Sunday, which has since evolved into Society Insider. The weekly column gives a glimpse into the worlds of the rich and famous.