I have always been interested in healing and in understanding the mind.  After graduating  from Smith College  with a B.A. in Psychology, I attended medical school at Tufts University School of Medicine,  and obtained my M.D. in 1995.  I then completed my psychiatry residency at Harvard Medical School.   Although I received broad training in psychiatry,  my focus was in  community mental health and in treating the severely mentally ill,  a population that I felt was underserved.  I spent most of my clinic hours during residency at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center and  Boston Healthcare for the Homeless treating conditions such as bipolar illness,  schizophrenia, and borderline personality disorder .   In my chief residency year, I worked at the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (formerly known as the Indochinese Psychiatry Clinic at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) caring for victims of war who suffered from PTSD and depression. 

After completing my residency in 1999, I moved to the  Sacramento area to raise a family. I worked at Kaiser Permanente for several years, primarily in the adult outpatient anxiety disorders clinic in Roseville.  Here, I became very  proficient in the medication management of PTSD, OCD, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and depression by prescribing for a large caseload of patients.

In 2004 I left Kaiser to open my private practice.  I held a busy practice for 5 years, but in 2009 I decided to take a sabbatical to devote time to my family.   I maintained my clinical skills by completing my 10-year board re-certification and attending continuing medical education activities.  I also worked as a peer reviewer on workers' compensation cases,  gaining insight into the toll of stress, chronic pain and injury on the brain.

I am now thrilled to have re-opened my practice as of October 2014, and I am looking forward to treating my clients with the most current knowledge in the field of mental health.  I am excited that the medical field  is in the midst of a revolution-- a paradigm shift away from a  problem-specific  disease model to a more integrative one as we begin to acknowledge how the mind, body, spirit and community all interact to affect our health and wellness.  Rather than treating symptoms, we must focus on the root cause of diseases.  I have witnessed over my years of practice that although  medications can be very powerful and beneficial, especially in the acute situation,  they also have their limitations and that successful long-term treatment and healing must encompass a wider scope of treatment options.

My passion to find a more comprehensive approach to preventing and treating mental illness has led me to the Andrew Weil Center For Integrative Medicine (formerly the  Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine -- AZCIM) at the University of Arizona School of Medicine, the leader in the field of integrative medicine.   I am grateful to be a part of  the Fellowship's graduating class of Fall 2018,  under the direction of Dr. Andrew Weil, and I am very excited to bring this knowledge into my practice!