Dr. Bernie Lim
Pioneer of Whole-Person Healing to the People
Physician, Movement Organizer, Creator
Founder & Executive Director, Freedom Community Clinic
Based in Oakland, CA
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 gardening, farming, and herbalism. In addition, as a classical pianist and accompanist of 25+ years, chamber music composer and arranger, salsa dancer, and hula dancer, 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.
In order to achieve greater health equity and social justice, 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,
Bernadette (Bernie) Lim, MD, MS
“My goal as I work towards refining the philosophy of Whole-Person Healing is to continue to proclaim in the streets, in our communities, with the people: Healing is Justice. Healing is Resistance. Healing is Freedom.”
Bernadette Lim, MD, MS
