Dr. Nicole Freels, FACFAOM, is a Kentucky native and University of Kentucky alumnus. The granddaughter of Dr. Arthur O. Kelly, a Podiatrist in Portsmouth, Ohio, Dr. Freels grew up on a horse farm in South Portsmouth, Kentucky. She spent much of her time shadowing her grandfather and learning the building blocks of podiatry.

Upon graduating from Lewis County High School she attended the University of Kentucky. After receiving her Bachelor of Science in Biology, she was accepted to her grandfather’s alma mater, the Ohio College of Podiatric Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio.

She then completed a comprehensive three-year podiatric surgical residency. She began her training at the James H. Quillen Veterans Affairs in Mountain Home, Tennessee, and spent her final year with with world-renown podiatric surgeons and pioneers, Drs. Douglas H. Elleby and Alan Shaw and leading wound care specialist and podiatric surgeon Dr. Michael K. Bednarz in Atlanta, Georgia.