Current title: Vice Chair of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, San Jose, CA

Chief of Brain Injury Rehabilitation, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, San Jose, CA

Clinical Associate Professor (Affiliated) Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine

Fellowship: Traumatic Brain Injury at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA

Residency: Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at Stanford Hospital and Clinics, Stanford, CA

Medical school: New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY

Undergraduate: UC Davis, Davis, CA

As the first physician in my family, I did not have a roadmap to follow toward a path in medicine. A career as a doctor combined my interest for science with my personal goal of helping others and the community. There were many long days of studying, financial challenges, and personal sacrifices to be made along the way. In retrospect, all of those moments were worth the privilege of becoming a physiatrist and having the opportunity to help rebuild the lives of my patients.

This moment occurred a few months into the COVID 19 pandemic. As I was walking into the hospital entrance, a stranger approached me and asked me if I had created the coronavirus. The empowered and explicit racism was shocking and upsetting. The increasing hate directed at the AAPI community over the past few years has been heartbreaking and difficult to accept.

Early in my residency training I witnessed the inequity of care available to different patient populations. Those living with disability must contend with not only physical barriers, but also systemic challenges within healthcare that influence access to resources and treatment. Disability exponentially impacts those of lower socioeconomic status making the road to recovery all the more difficult. Treating the underserved and bridging those gaps has been a passion of mine, and why I choose to work at a public safety net hospital.

My daily work as a physiatrist allows me to impact patient lives on an individual level, but I also hope to use my expertise and platform to raise public awareness about brain injuries and disability. Brain injury treatment and recovery are impacted by a variety of social determinants of health. I am fortunate to be a member of the State of California’s Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Advisory Board which is working toward establishing an annual TBI state plan, developing a TBI state registry, and completing a comprehensive needs assessment for those living with TBI.

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