Dr. Dawn Motyka practices Holistic, Functional and Integrative Medicine. Holistic means we treat the entire person, including attention to family, social and spiritual needs. Functional Medicine is a systems approach based on cutting edge biochemistry research, including knowledge of your individual genetic makeup, i.e., personalized medicine. The first line of defense of this approach promotes nutrition, lifestyle decisions, appropriate natural supplements, and hormone balancing before the standard use of pharmaceuticals. We are Integrative because we apply the scientific knowledge of conventional Family Practice and Functional Medicine along with time-honored practices of "Alternative Medicine" such as acupuncture, herbs, hypnosis, and other historically-tested practices.

Dr. Dawn Motyka

Dr. Dawn Motyka

Dr. Motyka is a Board Certified in Family Practice Medicine and in Medical Acupuncture. She is also certified in Functional Medicine and Hypnosis. Dr. Motyka is one of the first of a small but growing group of physicians who have reframed their standard medical training into a systems-based approach to medicine. She is deeply involved in education of other physicians as faculty with the Institute for Functional Medicine. In 2018, she was part of a group that participated with the US Dept. of Defense in an initiative to train US Military physicians in the Funtional Medicine approach to pain management. She is currently on hiatus from the faculty at Five Branches College of Chinese Medicine where she has taught Western Medicine to graduate students in Acupuncture. Dr. Motyka is the only acupuncturist with full privileges at Domincan Dignity Santa Cruz Hospital. She received her medical education from the University of California at Davis and completed her family practice residency at San Bernardino County Medical Center. She received her acupuncture training from the prestigious Helms Institute at UCLA and has been actively practicing acupuncture since 1999. In 2013, she was part of the first group of physicians to quality for certification by the most rigorous criteria of the Institute for Functional Medicine.

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NOTICE: The Functional Medicine practice is a medical consultation practice only. We do not provide after-hours care, emergency care or hospital management of medical conditions except for Optimage Prime patients. If you feel you have an emergency situation, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room.