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Dr. Danielle’s role in medicine began driving ambulances through Nor’easters responding to motor vehicle accidents and delivering babies at the age of 16 for a volunteer first responder organization. Thirsting for the knowledge of how to optimize health, she would spend her lunch breaks at Cornell University reading the NY Times health section and eventually receive a BA in Biology and Society. She returned to her home state to complete medical school at the University of Connecticut and her love of the ocean brought her to San Diego where she would be boarded by the American Board of Emergency Medicine after completing residency at UCSD. Her love of a California surfing ER doctor kept her here to practice at Sharp Grossmont Hospital where she cares for some of the most acutely ill and underserved population in the county. She has been a medical consultant for NBC News San Diego and KPBS on various topics including preventive medicine practices and influneza outbreaks in the community.
Dr. Danielle’s twin sister who is severely intellectually and physically impaired has taught her that connection beyond words is one of the most powerful forms of healing. It is this compassion and understanding that has guided her and been a predominant force in her practice for the last 20 years. Her power and love of connection also led her to pursue training at Al Pacino’s alma matter Lee Strasberg Theater Institute and eventually create a documentary film about the root causes of teen pregnancy which was utilized for education in inner city Connecticut high schools. She has gone on to be a research assistant and medical consultant for multiple Emmy award winning film makers including the writer of the HBO film Miss Ever’s Boys and the executive producer of House.
Publishing papers in various medical journals on topics ranging from estrogen’s role in traumatic brain injury and pediatric poisonings, her most influential research has been her work on high altitude where she traveled to the Himalayas and Machu Picchu. It was these poverty stricken countries as well as her interest in Aruveydic medicine that taught her that learning to improve the “terrain” for chronic disease prevention is more important than treating the symptoms.
Dr. Danielle is thrilled to continue her journey in medicine by obtaining training from the Institute of Functional Medicine and The Dan Kalish Institute where she has learned a new way to biohack health and optimize wellness. When she is not absorbing the latest medical health research, you can find her doing her best to raise three socially responsible, healthy, kind children and engaging in much loved activities like surfing, singing, yoga, and writing screenplays to promote positive social consciousness.
Medicine has been an integral part of my life for more than 27 years. As an Emergency Medicine Physician, I can definitively say that the COVID-19 pandemic will necessitate a reinvention of medicine. The number of people suffering from complex, chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and autoimmune disease is sharply increasing in a world that has become more socially isolated and less likely to embrace behaviors that create immune resilience.
If we are to have lasting effects on our wellbeing, we must take into account a person’s genetics, environmental exposure to toxins, and the aspects of lifestyle that have a direct influence on their health. We must move away from specialty based medicine and look at the body as a system which is intimately connected requiring a multimodality of care. This approach has helped me, personally, stay healthy and energized to fulfill my other roles as a wife and mother to three children.
It is with great excitement and humility that I engage in this type of physician patient relationship—no longer placing “band-aids” on wounds but identifying the root cause of illness and ideally preventing it from occurring at all. Please contact me to help develop an individualized functional medicine health plan to optimize your wellbeing.
Yours in service and health,
Dr. Danielle Douglas MD, IFMCP
La Jolla Functional Medicine Clinic
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