In this week’s episode of Routes of Healing, Dr. Siri Chand Khalsa sits down with Dr. Diana Londoño, a board-certified urologist, physician coach, and integrative healer whose work bridges surgical excellence with deep attention to dignity, trauma, burnout, and the mind–body–spirit connection.

Together, they explore what happens after the early years of medical training, when clinicians reach mid to late career and begin reckoning with burnout, identity, values, and the quiet realization that the system that trained them may no longer sustain them.

This conversation moves through Dr. Londoño’s journey from growing up in Mexico City to training in Los Angeles, from surgical culture to whole-person care, from repeated burnout to leadership, coaching, and spiritual healing practices. They discuss dignity in clinical encounters, the nervous system’s role in urologic symptoms, the unspoken trauma held in the body, and why curiosity, presence, and love belong at the center of medicine.

Whether you’re a clinician navigating burnout, a physician questioning traditional practice models, a healer exploring integrative approaches, or someone longing for a more humane experience of care, this episode offers grounded wisdom, compassion, and permission to evolve.

If you’re inspired by our exploration on Routes of Healing, a physician-led podcast uplifting the wisdom and lived experience of integrative & lifestyle medicine doctors, subscribe to receive new episodes weekly.

• Mid- to late-career medicine: What happens after the first decade of training and practice.
• Burnout as a wake-up call: Recognizing cynicism, depersonalization, and chronic stress as signals for change.
• Identity & integrity: Staying true to personal values in systems that reward conformity.
• Growing up between cultures: How Dr. Londoño’s upbringing in Mexico shaped her openness to holistic healing.
• Dignity in care: Small clinical choices that profoundly impact patient safety and trust.
• Trauma & the pelvic floor: How stress, grief, and nervous system dysregulation manifest physically.
• Listening as medicine: Why patients often heal simply by being truly heard.
• Integrative urology: Addressing diet, movement, stress, constipation, and emotional health alongside medications and procedures.
• Energy healing practices: Salt baths, Reiki, and pranic healing as tools for nervous system regulation.
• Direct specialty care: Moving away from insurance-driven care toward time, transparency, and prevention.
• Boundaries & burnout recovery: Why learning to say no is essential for physician wellness.
• Morning & evening rituals: Creating parasympathetic safety through routine.
• Scarcity vs. sufficiency: Reframing “I don’t have time” as a mindset, not a fact.
• Curiosity as healing: Staying open, asking “why,” and allowing practices and identities to evolve.
• Love in medicine: Reclaiming compassion, presence, and humanity as foundational clinical skills.

00:00 — Introduction and Welcome

01:09 — Why These Conversations Matter

02:33 — Training, Burnout & the Forgotten Meaning of “Healer”

05:02 — The Myth of “Five Years Out”

07:04 — Growing Up in Mexico City & Medical Training in LA

09:44 — Origin Stories & Cultural Roots of Healing

10:27 — Feeling Different and Staying True to...

In this week’s episode of Routes of Healing, Dr. Siri Chand Khalsa sits down with Dr. Nishi Bhopal, a triple–board-certified psychiatrist, sleep medicine physician, and integrative holistic medicine doctor who has become a leading voice in translating sleep science into accessible, actionable tools for clinicians and patients.

Together, they explore the winding journey that brought Dr. Bhopal from family expectations in medicine to psychiatry, from burnout to yoga and Ayurveda, from clinical curiosity to entrepreneurial leadership in sleep health education.

This conversation moves through identity, cultural expectations, circadian rhythm biology, women’s sleep health, long COVID, integrative approaches to insomnia, and the gaps in medical training that leave most clinicians unequipped to treat one of the most universal human experiences: sleep.

Whether you're a practitioner wanting a deeper understanding of circadian medicine, a clinician exploring integrative training, a patient navigating insomnia, or a healer attempting to reclaim your own rhythms in a fast-paced world, this episode offers compassionate, evidence-informed insight.

If you're inspired by our exploration on Routes of Healing, a physician-led podcast uplifting the wisdom and lived experience of integrative & lifestyle medicine doctors, subscribe to receive new episodes weekly.

• The origin story: How family expectations influenced Dr. Bhopal’s entry into medicine, and how curiosity, not certainty, ultimately guided her path.
• From Internal Medicine to Psychiatry: Seeking deeper human connection and more time to understand patients.
• Ayurveda, yoga, and meditation as turning points during residency and antidotes for burnout.
• Sleep Medicine: Why circadian rhythms matter more than we teach, and how modern sleep training overlooks essential foundations.
• Insomnia isn’t always insomnia: Many patients are treated for the wrong problem.
• Women’s sleep health: Why women are dismissed, underdiagnosed, and mismanaged within traditional models.
• Personalizing care: No one-size-fits-all approach—sleep timing, fasting, activity, and routines must fit the individual.
• Long COVID: How persistent sleep architecture disruptions present distinct clinical challenges.
• Entrepreneurship & medicine: The creation of IntraBalance, clinician education, YouTube content, and online sleep courses.
• CSH Framework (a practical model for unpacking insomnia)
• Circadian rhythm
• Sleep drive
• Hyperarousal
• Clinical training gaps: Most physicians receive 2–4 hours of sleep education in medical school.
• Creative practice-building: The courage to pivot, niche, and design programs that match your strengths.
• Self-discovery in medicine: Noticing what brings joy and letting your practice evolve accordingly.

00:00 — Introduction and Connection

00:58 — Technical Difficulties and Adjustments

01:09 — Healing Journeys & Integrative Roots

03:56 — Family Influence and the Medical Path

07:15 — Navigating Family Expectations

10:37 — Cultural Context and Choosing Medicine

11:56 — Medical Training: Canada vs. Ireland vs. U.S.

14:46 — The Art of Listening and Clinical Diagnosis

16:33 — Yoga, Ayurveda & Personal Awakening

19:16 — Integrative Medicine Philosophy

20:58 — Dr. Bhopal’s Current Practice & Approach

26:22 — Circadian Rhythms in Healing

28:21 — Body Clocks, Misalignment & Sleep...

In this episode of Roots of Healing, Dr. Siri Chand Khalsa speaks with Dr. Michelle Thompson, an osteopathic family physician, integrative and lifestyle medicine leader, and founder of Wholehearted Medicine. Together, they explore what happens when we stop seeing ourselves as the healer and begin to recognize that every patient is their own best healer.

Dr. Thompson shares her unconventional journey from stepping away from medical school to become the director of a massage therapy school, where she immersed herself in reflexology, aromatherapy, neuromuscular therapy, sound healing, and art therapy then returning to osteopathic training with a completely different lens on what true healing could be.

From being labeled “the integrative one” in a 100,000 employee health system to designing lifestyle medicine residency curricula and launching mind-body group visits, Dr. Thompson has quietly been reshaping what care can look and feel like for both patients and clinicians. She also opens up about grief, losing her grandmother, Ayurvedic support during a silent retreat, and how unprocessed stress can live in the body as chronic illness, burnout, and mysterious symptoms.

Whether you’re a clinician on the edge of burnout, a patient seeking trauma-informed, whole-person care, or a healer who needs permission to put yourself back into the center of your own life, this conversation is an invitation to return to self-love, nervous system healing, and the simple, radical act of listening to your own body.

If you're inspired by our exploration on Routes of Healing, a physician-led podcast that brings forward the unique voices and lived experiences of lifestyle and integrative doctors, subscribe to get new episodes shared with you weekly.

• “You are your own best healer” – shifting power back to the patient
• Leaving medical school, leading a massage therapy school, and returning with a new integrative lens
• Learning reflexology, aromatherapy, neuromuscular therapy, sound therapy, and art therapy as foundations of future practice
• Turning a “traditional” family medicine practice into an integrative, lifestyle-focused clinic
• Why Dr. Thompson stopped saying “alternative and complementary” and insists on integrative and evidence-based
• Building lifestyle medicine into residency curricula across multiple programs at UPMC
• The six pillars of lifestyle medicine as a starting point for every patient visit
• Asking: “What’s going really well, and what are you struggling with?” as a doorway to root-cause discovery
• Grief, losing her grandmother, and how Ayurveda helped her see stress, digestion, and sympathetic overdrive differently
• “You cannot live being chased by a tiger your entire life” – the cost of chronic sympathetic activation
• Mind-body skills, James Gordon, and the Center for Mind-Body Medicine influence on her clinical work
• Group medical visits as a powerful vehicle for healing, connection, and reclaiming time in conventional systems
• How massage, sound therapy, yoga, and breathwork became essential, not optional, in her own self-care
• Physician well-being, trauma in training, and why self-care must sit at the center of healthcare
• Teaching medical students and residents to honor their bodies, stories, and inner wisdom
• Viewing self-care as an act of service: when we care for ourselves, we care better for others

00:00 — “I tell every patient, you are your own best healer.”

00:21 — Welcome to Roots of Healing

01:32 — Introducing Dr. Michelle Thompson and her role at UPMC and beyond

03:17 — Leaving medical school, leading a massage therapy school, and discovering integrative...