Welcome to
Dr. Behnam's Practice
Integrative medicine encourages more time and effort on disease prevention rather than treatment once it has surfaced.
An integrative practitioner like Dr. Behnam uses her broad understanding of the patient to make recommendations that may lead to disease prevention and slow or reverse its progression.
Integrative medicine is healing-oriented and emphasizes the centrality of the physician-patient relationship. Care is customized according to patients needs and values. This is recommended based on an understanding of the physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual aspects of each patient.
Dr. Shaida Behnam, MD, ABIHM
Board Certified Family Physician
Board Certified in Integrative Holistic Medicine
Certified in Acupuncture
Shaida Behnam, MD, specializes in delivering personalized preventative healthcare to every patient she serves. By integrating Eastern and Western philosophies in her private practice, Dr. Behnam is utilizing the wisdom of both schools of thought complementing each other to provide the best possible care for her patients.
“Healing is always possible, even when curing is not.”
Dr. Behnam believes in an integrative approach using therapies that address all aspects of an individual's health to facilitate healing. She makes recommendations based on an understanding of the physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual aspects of each person. The practice of integrative medicine is healing-oriented and emphasizes the doctor-patient relationship at its core. This model focuses on the least toxic, least invasive, and least costly methods to help facilitate health by integrating both conventional and complementary therapies. Dr. Behnam sees a patient as a whole person with mind, body, and spirit that when distressed may manifest with diseases. She tries her best to educate her patients on how to nourish or supplement this work of art, our body which is created perfectly, to prevent diseases in support of the immune system. If diseases come to surface, then she uses the appropriate medication to treat and supplements to optimize the patient's healing. She individualizes her care for every patient, since all patients are different with different strengths and weaknesses, and focuses heavily on nutritional medicine and mind-body healing.
Dr. Behnam is a California Board Certified in Family Medicine, Board Certified in Integrative Holistic Medicine and certified in Medical Acupuncture. Dr. Behnam holds advanced degrees in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Near Eastern Studies from U.C. Berkeley. She completed graduate medical studies at Ross University School of Medicine and trained at USC Presbyterian Inter-community Hospital for her residency. She is credentialed in Medical Acupuncture through the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine.
Most Insurances & New Patients Welcome
Medicare Rates Available for Uninsured Patients
Before starting her practice, Dr. Behnam served as a Family Physician and Associate Medical Director at the Axis Community Health Clinic for seven years in Pleasanton, California where she mainly treated indigent populations and quite complex patients from all over the world. She was awarded for the excellence in her clinical services by Community Health Center Network in Alameda County in 2007.
Besides, as a female family physician, Dr. Behnam has a particular interest in women's health and education. She focuses on Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement Therapy for post-menopausal women. She also recommends other natural modalities such as different Botanicals or alternative treatments for management of menopausal symptoms, premenstrual syndrome, and dysmenorrhea.
Dr. Behnam uses acupuncture for pain management, overall well being and energy flow, weight loss and smoking cessation. She uses infrared treatment for chronic pain and Fibromyalgia. She also utilizes biofeedback and breathing exercises for stress management, anxiety, panic attacks, and anxiety induced hypertension.
Dr. Behnam comes from a family of physicians. Her father is a retired Obstetric/Gynecologist who interested her in medicine from an early age. She also grew up with a diabetic mother who taught her what chronic disease meant as a patient and to their family, and how crucial preventive care can be to save a person from long term suffering. She lost her mother to diabetes and its complications at the end of her second year of residency. For that reason, diabetes is another interest of Dr. Behnam and educating diabetic, and pre-diabetic patients about this chronic disease has a special place in her heart that can prevent devastating consequences.
Dr. Behnam is the Medical Director at Forest Hill Manor, and Co medical Director at Canterbury Woods in Pacific Grove caring for our elderly population in this beautiful community.
