In this week’s episode of Routes of Healing, Dr. Siri Chand Khalsa sits down with Dr. María Colón-González, founder of saludRevisited, an Integrative and Lifestyle Medicine practice in Texas. Dr. María shares the personal and professional turning points that shaped her approach to care, including growing up in Puerto Rico with complex childhood health challenges, witnessing the legacy of medical service in her family, and confronting the limitations of conventional, volume-driven healthcare.

Together, they explore why many patients do not change simply because they have information, and how healing often requires a deeper sense of safety, agency, and nervous system regulation. Dr. María describes how trauma-informed therapy, somatic work, yoga training, and lifestyle medicine helped her understand the body’s “story,” and how identity and culture can subtly shift under the pressure to “fit in” within medical training.

This conversation is for clinicians and patients alike who feel the gap between what medicine can measure and what it takes to truly heal. It is also for anyone questioning the pace of modern life, the burnout of medical culture, and the possibility of practicing in a way that restores dignity, time, and relationship. As Dr. María reminds us: your body is not a microwave, and healing is not meant to be rushed.

If you’re inspired by our exploration on Routes of Healing, a physician-led podcast uplifting the wisdom and lived experience of integrative & lifestyle medicine doctors, subscribe to receive new episodes weekly.

1. From public health to medicine: Why Dr. María shifted from population health education into the power of the physician role.
2. A family legacy in Puerto Rico: The story of her grandfather, the only physician in his town, and a lineage of resilience.
3. Personal illness as initiation: How childhood asthma, allergies, type 2 diabetes, and chronic back pain shaped her healing lens.
4. “This relationship is not healthy”: Viewing conventional medical culture as an unhealthy system clinicians may need to leave.
5. The hidden losses of training: How identity and culture can be muted in the pursuit of “professionalism.”
6. Trauma as physiology: Why trauma is not simply “stress,” and how it impacts behavior change, motivation, and healing capacity.
7. Somatics + safety: How EMDR, trauma-informed yoga, journaling, and nervous system awareness support transformation.
8. The clinician affects the patient: Why the state of the healer shapes the therapeutic relationship and the patient’s response.
9. Healing against the culture: Why healing often requires resisting speed, convenience, and chronic overstimulation.
10. A different model of care: What it looks like to...