Virginia von Schaefer

Dr. V has prac­ti­ced medi­ci­ne and sur­gery for over 25 years. She is now a reti­red gene­ral, vas­cu­lar and trau­ma sur­ge­on who has been pro­vi­ding bio-inte­gra­ti­ve con­sul­ta­ti­ons to pati­ents of all ages in a varie­ty of cli­ni­cal settings.

Her pas­si­on is uti­li­zing the basic prin­ci­ples of cell bio­lo­gy and bio­che­mis­try to sol­ve medi­cal pro­blems. Her focus is to eva­lua­te and tre­at the who­le per­son, taking into account the mind, body, and spi­rit con­nec­tion to res­to­re bio­che­mi­cal balance.

Dr.V came to stu­dy medi­ci­ne after her first pregnan­cy tur­ned out to be a tumor, resul­ting in a sep­tic deli­very of a pos­si­bly can­ce­rous growth. The expe­ri­ence of this event ope­ned her eyes to the prac­ti­ce of medi­ci­ne and moti­va­ted her to quit her job, return to school to stu­dy sci­ence and prepa­re to go to medi­cal school.

To that end, she atten­ded Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty under­gra­dua­te school and majo­red in bio­che­mis­try and cell bio­lo­gy at the height of new dis­co­veries in cel­lu­lar ana­to­my and phy­sio­lo­gy. She had her first child as a “pre-med” and was the first woman with a child to be accept­ed to Colum­bia Col­lege of Phy­si­ci­ans and Sur­ge­ons medi­cal school in NYC. Her second child was born during medi­cal school and her next three child­ren were born during intern­ships in both Inter­nal Medi­ci­ne and Surgery.

She com­ple­ted sur­gi­cal trai­ning at an affi­lia­te of Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty in NYC, spe­cia­li­zing in Trau­ma Sur­gery and came to Cali­for­nia in 1994 to com­ple­te a Vas­cu­lar Sur­gery Fel­low­ship at Har­bor UCLA. One year after com­ple­ting the pro­gram she sus­tained a total spi­nal cord con­tus­i­on at C4 and C5 and had to stop actively prac­ti­cing surgery.

In the pro­cess of her reco­very she tur­ned back to her ori­gi­nal pas­si­on, cell bio­lo­gy and bio­che­mis­try. With new inspi­ra­ti­on and insight she explo­red the world of meta­bo­lic tre­at­ment using the prin­ci­ples of bio­che­mis­try, endo­cri­no­lo­gy and nut­ri­ti­on for pro­blem solving.

When not working Dr.V enjoys spen­ding time with her child­ren and three Ita­li­an grey­hounds, gar­dening, coo­king and writing.