Family practitioner, osteopath, classical Indian dancer, tennis player, wife and mother, Dr. Mala Singh brings to Sonoma and Dr. Brian Sebastian’s family practice a passion for life, a dedication to health and an effervescent optimism. “I want to accept patients from all walks of life,” she said, “regardless of age, and focus on preventive care. I believe in quality of life.”
To Singh, that means annual exams, lifestyle modification, healthy eating and exercise. The goal for her patients is simple: “While you are living, you should be healthy. You should enjoy life.”
Her approach, which is the characteristic of osteopathic medicine, is to consider the “whole person.” If you go in with an illness, for example, she will treat the condition with traditional western medical techniques and she will also look at whatever lifestyle issues, such as diet or work-related stress, may be contributing to the condition.
As an osteopathic physician, whose training differs from traditional medicine only in that it involves the body-mind-spirit continuum, she is able to apply a range of physical techniques to encourage the whole body to work together in healing.
Having been schooled as a child both in New York and India, she brings an international breadth to her practice. She also understands the joys and challenges of both stay-at-home motherhood and combining family and career.
During the early years of her marriage, in Michigan, as the wife of a tennis pro and mother of two small children, Singh stayed at home. Then, one day, when her children were in elementary school, her mother visited from India and encouraged her to follow her dream of becoming a physician. She went back to school. She completed her B.S. in Microbiology in 1995 at the University of Michigan by going to school during the days and cooking and helping her kids with their homework at night. “We all studied together at the kitchen table after dinner,” she said, “while my husband went out to teach.”
Applying to medical school at age 38 is not the norm, and it took two years for Singh to be accepted by Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine. “I graduated from medical school the same week my daughter graduated from high school,” she said, smiling radiantly.
After completing the necessary three-year residency in conjunction with Michigan State University, she graduated in 2006. She decided to move her family to California and worked for three years in Rancho Mirage in her own family practice sponsored by the Eisenhower Medical Center. She is Board certified in Family Practice and now she is looking forward to serving the community of Sonoma as part of Dr. Sebastian’s family practice.
