Selena Chan, DO

Experience 

Dr. Selena Chan is a board-certified integrative psychiatrist who specializes in helping patients find safe, evidence-informed, and cost-effective treatment options that can be practically implemented in each person’s current life circumstances. These may include conventional medications, supplements, botanicals, values-based psychotherapy, creative expression, and mind-body practices that honor lineage from indigenous healing traditions.

As Associate Director of Clinical Programs, Dr. Chan is committed to nurturing the collective well-being of patients, healthcare professionals, and the community. She co-leads the development of several programs, including Grand Rounds, Public Classes, the Community Care Fund (CCF), and Sharing Humanity through the Arts, Reflection, and Expression (SHARE). CCF and SHARE address the significant lack of integrative treatment options for low-income, underserved, and marginalized communities. In collaboration with the Shanti Project, SHARE bridges a critical gap in accessibility: non-verbal and culturally relevant communication about approaches that improve therapeutic outcomes of mind-body conditions.

Dr. Chan’s twenty-year service to Integrative Health continues to inform her approach to patient care, leadership, and teaching today. During college, she served as preventive medicine chair for the American Pre-Medical Student Association and an intern at the Centers for Disease Control’s Center for Healthy Aging. She researched mind-body interventions for healing at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Integrative Medicine. During medical school, she was the vice president of the integrative medicine group and trained at the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine. As a psychiatry resident, she worked in multicultural, safety-net hospitals in Honolulu, after which she completed a two-year clinical fellowship in integrative medicine. Now, as a faculty member, she enjoys mentoring interprofessional students and teaching courses that examine how to mend the mind-body split that can stigmatize mental health, using film clips from popular cinema as case vignettes.

Education and Training

• Clinical Fellowship, Integrative Medicine, UCSF
• Psychiatry Residency, University of Hawaii
• DO, Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine
• BS, Exercise Science, University of Pittsburgh

Personal Statement and Approach

Whether you are experiencing a stressful life transition, a medically complex or unexplained mind-body illness, or need a space to understand overwhelming facets of daily life, I will invite you to explore what is most important to you. My clinical practice centers on our partnership to understand how a constellation of life experiences may shape what is uniquely challenging or meaningful to your wholeness and well-being. I am humbled by the opportunity to learn something new from patients and the UCSF team every day.

Publications

View Publications on UCSF Profile