Meet Dr. Jessica Cho, M.D.

Jessica Cho, M.D., is a highly regarded Internal Medicine Physician whose clinical approach is focused on integrative wellness. Dr. Cho is devoted to serving patients at Wellness at Century City in Los Angeles, California. She received her BS in Biology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1991 and her MD from Keck School of Medicine of USC in 1995. She then completed her Internal Medicine residency at UCLA-Harbor Medical Center and began practicing in 1998. Founded in 2000 by Dr. Cho, Wellness at Century City was started to help patients take charge of their health and achieve long-term well-being.

“For more than 25 years, I have been honored and humbled to have the privilege of doing what I love most every day: practicing medicine. But my journey didn’t start this way. Growing up in Korea, I was expected to become a concert pianist. When I came to the US, I initially studied bioengineering until I fell in love with the wondrous dynamic of the mind and body, working together in perfect synchronicity. Becoming a physician aligned my actions with my heart’s passion and mind’s curiosity.

Fresh out of medical school, I was ecstatic to start practicing internal medicine: preventing, diagnosing, and treating illness. Then, a storm hit me during my first few years of practicing. I struggled with sleepless nights, unbalanced hormones, and moodiness. My specialty doctors couldn’t help me, and the medications I was given caused more side effects than relief. As I faced the isolating emotional repercussions of my health problems, I felt like I had become a shell of my previous self. I lost myself. I could no longer see myself as a wife, as a mom, or as a woman.

Out of my despair came my quest to repair and to heal. I sought to broaden my knowledge beyond conventional Western medicine. After years of re-educating and re-training in integrative and anti-aging medicine and Eastern medicine, I discovered how to use all the tools in healing, not only conventional prescriptions and referrals.

I am grateful for the life I have lived to get me to this point. My health experiences helped me become a better physician to my patients, as I understand their frustrations and worries. In my busy life as a mom, a physician, and a wife, I feel the most invigorated during my conversations with my patients. I am humbled by the immense privilege I have had to truly get to know my patients when I learn about the background that shaped them into who they are and their daily private, internal struggles. The most rewarding part of medicine is embarking on a healing journey together. To me, medicine embodies the spirit of empathy and service to others. Today and every day, I become more inspired to help others heal from within to achieve long-term wellness, not a quick fix. This is my divine calling and the driving force behind what I do and why I practice medicine daily. “