At the tender age 10, as part of a classroom exercise on future careers, Simoni Baid, M.D. — who knew she wanted to be a doctor even then — wrote a letter to Harvard Medical School and received an admissions packet and a very sweet note that she still has in her childhood memories box. Today, this caring and committed physician focuses mainly on preventive medicine by holistically approaching the body and helping patients make lifestyle changes to treat and prevent chronic disease. “I enjoy teaching patients about how beautiful, intelligent and intricate the human body is,” she says. “How it’s capable of so much more than we give it credit for.” She once had a 55-year-old patient who lived in a state of exhaustion because he had not slept in 10 years. After 5 minutes of meditation and some simple breathing exercises, he fell asleep in her office and later told her that after that visit he no longer suffers from insomnia. Perhaps her most important quality is the ability to empathize, a trait that not all highly trained clinical doctors have. Her parents moved to Miami from India and are the manifestation of the American Dream. Today, she is passing on her belief in gratitude and her zest for life to her two young children. “Our moments together are precious,” she says. “I know they’ll be gone in the blink of an eye!” On a professional front, she hopes to one day have locations around Miami and train a line of specialized, integrative primary care practitioners; AhimsaMD.com.
