Jessica Johnson is a Stanford emergency medicine resident, writer and yoga teacher passionate about merging the east with the west to foster true healing. She believes we are here to feel, to love and to take care of each other with the gifts we’ve been given and is a tireless advocate for wellness and self-care for everyone, but especially for those who make a living caring for others--a belief that inspired her to develop a yoga & meditation program for her medical campus community shortly after beginning medical school.
Outside of the hospital, she's busy running the entirely donation-based pop-up yoga platform, the "Bhav Brigade," she cofounded in early 2015, writing for her blog LivingSoulfull.com, as well as major online media platforms such as Elephant Journal and Thought Catalog, and loving on her white fluff ball of a samoyed puppy, River.
When asked why she loves her job, Jessica answered:
"What drew me to medicine was primarily a love for the human condition--it's here, in the medical setting, that this beautifully complex, but invariably mundane journey of life ands death climaxes. And what field is more raw and in touch with the diverse realities of what it is to be human than emergency medicine? It's a place where pretension does not, could not, exist. The emergency department does not know class or income or education level. There is no difference between ability and inability to pay in the eyes of the emergency physician, nurse or technician. There is no difference between the CEO and the blue-collar worker, the celebrity and the homeless, the drug addict and the monk. There is only humanity. This job puts you smack dab in the middle of people's most desperate moments--an honor I believe is second to none. Everyday going to work is like reading a collection of short stories on the human condition. It's our job to hear these stories, to see them--really see them--process them and learn from them. The work we do keeps us continually in touch with the sacredness of life--with what really matters--and it's this humanity that I treasure most."
Follow Jessica on Instagram and visit her website at LivingSoulfull.com.
Jessica Johnson is a Stanford emergency medicine resident, writer and yoga teacher.
