Dr. Li on KQED Live With Michael Krasny (NPR Radio)

Cynthia Li was a successful doctor in her 30s when an autoimmune disease torpedoed her health. She and her doctors were baffled. Her test results were normal, but mysterious symptoms wracked her body. Li's memoir, Brave New Medicine: A Doctor's Unconventional Path to Healing Her Autoimmune Illness, follows her long journey to understanding her condition, rethinking the way medicine is practiced, and finding her way back to health.

Michael: You were able to move in a different direction, from conventional medicine to -- has to do with the ecology of mind, body, and spirit. As soon as people hear "spirit," they think "woo-woo." Cynthia: I was right there with the skeptics [with regard to turning to holistic healing]. What finally broke me open wasn't an enlightement of any kind, but sheer fatigue. It forced me to go back to Pathology 101. How do chronic diseases start? How do they progress? This was the beginning of my journey into root causes of chronic disease.