A Letter from Dr. Bernie

Welcome! Most people call me (Dr.) Bernie. My life's calling is centered on bringing Whole-Person Healing to the People integrating the wisdom of Ancestral Healing with the strengths of Western medicine.

I am the Founder and Executive Director of the Freedom Community Clinic based in Oakland, CA and serve as Faculty at the San Francisco State Institute for Holistic Health Studies. I also co-founded the Institute for Healing & Justice in Medicine. I recently graduated from UCSF School of Medicine and UC Berkeley School of Public Health through the Joint Medical Program as a PRIME-US Scholar. I also graduated with cum laude honors from Harvard University (2016) and am a past Fulbright-Nehru Scholar to India.

Beyond my formal education and training, my work is inspired by my identities as a healer, musician, and daughter of island people from the Visayan, Philippines & Toisan lands. I teach and have practiced daily meditation, breathwork, and yoga for 15+ years after experiencing chronic pain. I also incorporate my practice in farming, intuitive herbalism, and energy healing as a Reiki Master.  In addition, as a classical pianist and accompanist for 25+ years, DJ, salsa dancer, and haumana of hula, music is central to my healing and creative process. I am proud to live, work, and play in the Town (Oakland, CA) where I am inspired by its rich activism, culture, and community cultivated by and for Black, Brown, Native, and immigrant communities.​

If we want to be real about achieving health equity and social justice, we need to face the fact that Western medicine and public health frameworks, though helpful to an extent, are simply inadequate on their own at addressing disease & psychological stress faced by Black, Brown, and immigrant people. A Whole-Person Healing approach grounded in community and honoring the body, mind, and spirit is needed now more than ever.

My intention is to re-define medicine for Black, Brown, and immigrant people as not the absence of disease, but the presence of freedom to live as one’s authentic self. I believe in a future where Community Healing for the body, mind, & soul is critical for a more healed and just world.

I hope you will join me in envisioning new futures and possibilities of bringing healing to the people.

In gratitude,

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Bernadette (Bernie) Lim, MD, MS