Born and raised in Ottawa, Karen Chambers originally pursued and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature before making the decision to pursue medicine as a career. In 1995, she graduated from medical school at Université de Montréal, and completed her residency in Family Medicine through McGill University at their Gatineau campus in 1997.

For 18 years from 1997 to 2015, Dr. Chambers practiced as a Family Physician in the Pontiac region of Québec, working in a diverse variety of environments and capacities, such as in inpatient care, emergency rooms, office clinics, long-term care facilities, and home visits. From 2003 to 2015, she was self-employed and ran her own medical clinic (the first incarnation of Clinique du Lac) while also continuing to meet her other responsibilities as a doctor in the public medical system.

Upon developing both a personal and professional interest in Integrative Medicine, Dr. Chambers joined a fellowship program with the Andrew Weil Centre for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona from 2012 to 2014 in order to cultivate her knowledge and expertise in that field. This had the beneficial effect of supplementing her years of experience in more mainstream medicine with innovative and comprehensive new approaches for bettering the health of those in her care.

Following a move back to Ottawa with her family in 2015, Dr. Chambers found employment in the private medical sector at ExecHealth, where she provided (amongst other services) preventative health assessments and ongoing care to patients, as well as working closely with the clinic psychologist to handle mental health evaluations and follow-ups. Due to the unfortunately long wait times before patients would often be able to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Chambers became well-versed in dealing with matters of mental health, which paired well with her holistic approach towards practicing medicine.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Chambers returned to her rural farm in the Pontiac to provide virtual health consultations when physical visits became unfeasible. Adapting well to the virtual medium, Dr. Chambers is currently working part-time with EaseCare Medical (a private company based in Alberta) to provide mental health services - which have largely become the new focus of her work - and which have the benefit of being able to be fully conducted remotely, unlike many other medical services.

Dr. Chambers is also currently enrolled in a year-long fellowship called “Psychiatry Redefined”, dealing primarily with Integrative Medicine and Functional Medicine, paired with elements of Nutritional Psychiatry. As of September 2022, she will also be participating in another fellowship with the Integrative Psychiatry Institute, focusing on the root causes of mental health issues and going beyond symptom reduction so patients can live healthier and better lives.