Bio

Dr. Jia Mao is an only child of Chinese immigrants from Shanghai, and settled in California in early 1990's. Since childhood, she has enjoyed a wide range of interests from painting, poetry, literature, sports, science, and mathematics. At 16 years of age, she was awarded a summer research scholarship at City of Hope Diabetes and Endocrinology Department. The following year at the international diabetes conference, she was invited to attend an internship program at an islet cell transplant surgery center in Geneva, Switzerland. She ultimately was committed to completing her medical doctorate degree through an accelerated combined program at UCR/UCLA. She holds a B.S. degree in Biomedical Sciences, a minor in Anthropology, and graduated as an MD in 2010.

Dr. Mao's pursuit of surgical endeavors during undergrad and medical school lead her to working at OneLegacy Organ, Eye and Tissue Procurement and Donation Center in Southern California for 2.5 years. Prior to determining a career in psychiatry, Dr. Mao's passion focused on minimally invasive treatment options in orthopedic hand surgery. After completing psychiatry residency at UCLA Kern Medical Center in 2015, she worked for 7 years at a community mental health center servicing low socioeconomic population. As the education director of the center, she also worked as an assistant professor for Western University and UCR teaching medical students and family medicine residents. 

While psychiatry is at the forefront for innovations in treatment, mental health stigma continues to impregnate the underbellies of society. Having intimately experienced mental adversities both as a healer and as an ally,

Dr. Mao strives to empower people through engaging in their core values, keying in on simple solutions, and laying out fundamentals to discipline mindsets. 

In 2022, Dr. Mao founded Desiderata Integrative Psychiatry (DIP-MD) to embody the culture of striving to be happy and healthy in each measure by maintaining wellness and cultivating resilience. DIP-MD aims towards achieving superior mental health wellness through strenthening our inner scafolding of self control, self reliance, and self respect. 

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