Gina Perez-Baron, MD

Gina Perez-Baron, MD

Board-Certified in Family Medicine

Special Interest in:

Complex Chronic Illness and Diagnosis
Chronic Pain
Addiction
Mental Health

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Conditions Dr. Perez treats:

Complex chronic illness evaluation and diagnosis
Complex chronic care management (EDS, MCAS, POTS, long COVID)
Myofascial pain (trigger point injections and manual therapy)
Chronic pain and Fibromyalgia
Trauma, Complex PTSD, anxiety, depression, mental health
Problem use of alcohol, benzodiazepines, opioids. Harm Reduction and Withdrawal Management
Ketamine Therapy

Treatment Philosophy

Gina Perez-Baron MD is a graduate of Stanford University School of Medicine and past medical director of the Seattle Indian Health Board. She joins Neuroveda following a career of leadership blending allopathic medicine with mental, spiritual, emotional, and community healing.

My professional interests center on the role history and intergenerational experience play in shaping body and biochemistry, identifying their oft-unrecognized role in health and illness, and sharing the fortitude, agency, freedom and kinship that comes from this broader perspective. As an indigenous physician - I am Chicana and Apache-descent - I see biology, psychology, behavior and perspective shaped by one's personal, cultural, and intergenerational inheritance.

Borrowing from her favorite author, Robin Wall Kimmerer - she describes this "braiding sweetgrass" approach - blending the paradigms of western and indigenous science - as an ideal way to address complex chronic disease, chronic pain, and mental health. Weaving data with story, past medical history with place and culture, cutting edge research with indigenous science, she sees this as a good way of knowing. Translating her allopathic training through a cultural/indigenous lens results in a rooted, personal and communal approach to whole person care.

"We live in a time that no longer intuitively grasps how to nurture life, in a system that no longer knows how to nurture health. This is directly expressed in the 'pentad' of illnesses - auto-immunity, hEDS, ME/CFS, dysautonomia, MCAS - as well as their amplifiers (post-viral illnesses, fibromyalgia/myofascial pain, addiction/mental health). Whether we're talking 'big-T' or 'little-t', trauma in all its forms impacts our heath. Too many of us are living with the epigenetic/physiologic changes of trauma - either our own or our ancestors. This can decapitate wisdom, exacerbate pain, flame compulsions, magnify fear and solidify stale ways of thinking and relating. Trauma - and the "dis-ease" it can bring - also serves as a tool, a call to re-think, rewire and reset. My life's work is making sure we are not answering that call alone. Bringing together science, wisdom, innovation, traditional, allopathic, and natural medicine..as well as our own blood memory of perseverance and resilience, healing is in reach. I am beyond privileged to join Neuroveda because this is where I see the healing work of 'braiding sweetgrass' being done."

Biography

"My connection to my work, and my patients, is intimate and earned - I have skin in the game and a stake in each individual outcome." Born in Madrid, Spain to a Chicana/ Apache-descent mother who was raised in boarding schools and foster homes, Dr. Perez recognizes herself as a "born helper." Raised in Southern California, she briefly attending the U.S. Air Force Academy before moving to San Francisco and learning 'how life worked' through her extensive travels. Crewing sailboats down the coast of Mexico, backpacking through Central America, Europe, Northern Africa, Australia and New Zealand, she experienced those living lives less isolated and less stressed, rich in purpose with strong emotional supports even where material resources were scarce. It marked the beginning of her quest for deeper answers to difficult questions.

Returning to the Bay Area, she worked in biotech before completing her education, this time in medicine. At Stanford, she researched the resiliency and repair of wilderness experiences in trauma-exposed youth. After residency, she returned to her ancestral home, working throughout New Mexico before coming to Seattle where she brought her "braiding sweetgrass" approach to medicine as the Medical Director of the Seattle Indian Health Board. Her ongoing work in tribal health solidifies her reclaimed indigenous lens. Caring for people from all walks of life has deepened her understanding that we are all "five-fingered", sharing a common goal of a life well-lived, a common loss of that seamless connection to wholeness and a common path to wellness and well-being.

Today, she is an advocate, educator and national speaker on the role of trauma and resilience in health and behavior across the lifespan. A regular speaker at the Women's Midwest Herbal Conference, she has appeared on NPR and Gabor Mate's "Talks on Trauma". She amplifies native voices including the work of author Robin Wall-Kimmerer (Potawatomi), international speaker Pat McCabe "Woman Stands Shining" (Dine') and Chief Seattle Club elder Lorna Squetimkin (Colville/San Poil). She recognizes the role of reciprocity in acknowledging our responsibility to Native People and the Medicine (nature) they defend and sustain, to each other and to our teachers and those who came before. In addition to her work at Neuroveda, Dr. Perez works for the tribe of Skokomish and volunteers with Comunidad a Comunidad, a food justice and farmworkers rights collective. Her favorite things are visiting her Taos, NM earthship, paddling in her kayak and fussing with her New York Italian partner - a decorative finish paint contractor and musician - who feeds her (too) well and writes beautiful songs that make her dance and cry.