Semerit Strachan, MD, is a student and faculty member at the Cultural Wellness Center in South Minneapolis, MN. She has been the Director of Medicine at the Center since its beginning in 1996. She particularly helps community members reconcile parts of themselves that have previously been exiled from their sense of self. She is masterful at understanding and teaching the symbolic language of the Body through its symptoms of disease and discomfort, leading people to inquire “what is my body really trying to tell me?”

Dr Strachan recently retired from the Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics Program at the University of Minnesota, where she had been on faculty since 2000. She previously worked with the Indian Health Service in North and South Dakota, and in International Health with Save the Children (US) Federation. Prior to that, she worked at Columbia University Medical Center first as a General Pediatrician, then as the pediatrician in charge of the Pediatric Sickle Cell Clinic. Her expertise lies in creating a space for the human spirit in the medical encounter, in using culture as a resource in health and healing, and in teaching young people from infancy onward how to access inner resources to change their physiology or disease process.

Dr Strachan holds a BA from Wesleyan University in Middletown CT; an MD from Mt Sinai School of Medicine of City University of New York; and an MPH from Columbia University. She received her pediatric training from Boston City Hospital; did a Fellowship in Ambulatory Pediatrics and in Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at Columbia University, and a Fellowship in Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota. Dr Strachan was the recipient of a Bush Medical Fellow Award in 1994.

Dr Semerit is a writer, poet and artist. She is a Certified Intentional Creativity Coach. And has trained as a Feminine Power Coach and Facilitator. She is a native of Haiti.