Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine
Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine at The University of North Texas Health Science Center (2004-2008)
Pediatric Residency
Baylor College of Medicine (2008-2011)
Pediatric Hospice and Palliative Medicine
Akron Children’s Hospital (2011-2012)
Board Certified in Pediatrics (2011)
Board Certified in Hospice and Palliative Medicine (2012)
“The Practice” 200 Hr Yoga Teacher Training with teachers
Amber Shumake and Lauren Wessinger (2019)
Relax and Renew Level I Judith Hanson Lasater PhD, PT (2020)
Somatic Experience Practitioner (SEP) with main teacher Dave Berger LMFT, PT, LCMHC, MA, SEP (2020-2023)
Relational Bodywork and Somatic Education Practitioner (BASE-P) with Dave Berger LMFT, PT, LCMHC, MA, SEP (2023-2024)
Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness Practitioner with David Trelevan (2023-2024)
Texas Medical License R4349 | Ohio Medical License 34.010201
I am a board certified osteopathic physician in general pediatrics and both adult and pediatric palliative medicine and hospice medicine. Often people tell me this is a really sad profession, and while I don’t deny those days, I see myself as a bridge for patients/families and their Western medical world. The momentum we often find in Western medicine is wonderful and also complicated. The expectation is you have to react and make a decision immediately. And often there is a purported “right way.” Palliative medicine often asks everyone to “take a breath.”
Along the way I started also working with individuals who didn’t have the typical “palliative care” diagnosis. Many of them had such symptoms as chronic pain, chronic anxiety, poor sleep, and overwhelming fatigue. I prescribed medications and some would respond and others still did not seem to improve enough to effect change in their overall quality of life. As a physician I felt I was missing something. One common feature these patients all had was extreme medical intensity in their lives. I was only one of many physicians and other medical providers these patients were seeing.
The same is true of patients who I met in palliative care but ultimately were cured of their disease but still had lingering symptoms, often of pain. Returning to a regular life appeared challenging despite doing all the prescribed work.
i'm Dianna!
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What started out as a curiosity in trying to “add new things to my toolbox” became a true shift in my philosophy and lens in which I see patients and their experiences. While I have always been aware of the relationship between the mind and body, as a young physician, I would simply encourage and expect my patients to work with a behavioral/mental health specialist but have little regard for how these worlds were truly connected.
I began to recognize that patients and family systems who are under stress and may be experiencing repeated nervous system dysregulation which can sometimes lead to trauma. I have witnessed and perhaps even participated in such triggers be it physical or psychological. Patients have to undergo profound and frequent procedures, routine and unpredictable hospitalizations, an absurd amount of blood draws, and drops in communications from the many medical teams. All of which can result in repeated loss of control over their lives. This constant barrage creates a chronicity of activation and hyperarousal that has difficulty regulating back down into their window of tolerance. In fact, the only way to stop activation is to apply a full break leading to shut down. For some, the body and mind dissociate and disconnect. This is a survival response and normal. This onslaught of always having your accelerator on and a break also being applied can leave those in freeze or stuck in a perpetual cycle that can manifest in chronic symptoms of pain, fatigue, anxiety, poor sleep, hypervigilance, and gastrointestinal symptoms to name a few.
My practice focuses on reintegrating the mind and body connection so that embodiment can feel safe or safer. If a person has a disease that is never going to completely go away, then how can a person remain attuned and engaged while not becoming hypervigilant to every sensation? This is a “bottom up” approach rather than a “top down" approach which is the general approach to traditional psychotherapy like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
I understand the complexity of medicine, the multiple subspecialists, the coordination, the procedures and surgeries a patient has had to undergo. I am aware of all the complexities and time in care coordination between all medical teams. I also understand there is tissue damaging pain in disease and modulation to nerves that alters sensation. I have experience working with those with extremely rare diseases. I have been there, alongside many families walking their own journeys, and I hope to support you on yours.
Through the LENS of trauma and medicine together, we’ll examine symptoms in a whole NEW light to effect change and curiosity for NEW possibilities.
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Interested in working together? Schedule a complementary 30 minute informational where you can ask me questions and see what it could look like to work together.
If you are here as a caregiver for someone with medical complexity, the work I have done with parents of my patients gives me a key insight into your world.
As someone who has experienced burnout and moral injury in the medical world, I have used my own education to widen my own window of tolerance and developed the ability to truly track my symptoms and trust exactly what my body is telling me despite my mind trying to override and push through. Or when I need to push past my own activation, I have better tools to help me recover and prevent ongoing nervous dysregulation so as not to stay chronically in activation or shut down.
Finally, as a child of immigrant Chinese and Taiwanese parents, I understand the duality of growing up as an “other” in both of my worlds. My struggles often lead to dissociation as a survival mechanism. These childhood experiences created new challenges for me as an adult such as how to relate to my parents and still honor my cultural background. Through my own journey I have learned to respect what my body and mind chose to do in order to survive AND how to navigate and return to embodiment in order for me to continue to thrive as an adult and live my life to the fullest.
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