Melissa Monroe, PhD, L.Ac.

Melissa M. Monroe, Dipl. OM, L.Ac is the owner and founder of Eastside Family Acupuncture and in 2017, started a community acupuncture program for the Sickle Cell and Addiction patients at Martin Luther King, Jr Hospital in Watts, CA. In addition, Melissa is a faculty member at Dongguk University, as well as her alma mater, Samra University of Oriental Medicine.

Melissa began her academic pursuits by completing a Pre-Med curriculum at Loyola University Chicago where she graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University Honors Program with a B.S in Psychology. After graduating, Melissa worked as a Research Technologist at the University of Chicago in the Departments of Drug Abuse Research and Anesthesiology/Critical Care, as well as collaborative research with the Departments of Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery.

After several unsuccessful operations on a knee injury, Melissa found amazing rehabilitative results from Qi Gong, Yoga, Pilates, and Acupuncture, and began to study all of the modalities intensively, eventually becoming certified or licensed in all modalities. Melissa has also completed a year long Advanced Acupuncture Orthopedics intensive course with Don Lee, L.Ac. She has also been active in promoting her profession by serving on the AAAOM’s Student Organization as a Regional Director (2006-2008), as well as serving as the Co-Chair of the AAAOM Media and Publication Committee (2007-2008).

Supporting patients in grief has always been a large part of Melissa’s practice, but her understanding of grief became far more personal after she lost her 2-year-old daughter to Sudden Unexpected Death in Children in August of 2013. Since that time, Melissa has blogged about her healing process, founded an annual memorial concert, Agastock, to benefit a local sliding-scale counseling center, accepted public speaking engagements about grief and healing, and continues to see grief patients each week in her Los Angeles clinic.

www.melissamariemonroe.com