Dr. Remina Panjwani: Redefining Health, Resilience, and What It Means to Truly Thrive, “Women Lifting Up Women” Series
By Jules Lavallee
Dr. Remina Panjwani’s journey is one of resilience, reinvention, and a deep commitment to helping people live healthier, more purposeful lives. A board-certified Internal Medicine Physician with advanced training in Functional Medicine, she brings together conventional medical expertise with a root-cause and whole-person approach to health. From military service and the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic to navigating burnout and discovering a new way of practicing medicine, her experiences have shaped a philosophy that looks beyond symptoms to understand the person as a whole. In this conversation, Dr. Remina reflects on the experiences that shaped her, the women who inspired her, and why true resilience may begin not with pushing harder, but with learning how to recover, restore, and thrive.
You didn’t take the traditional path to medicine. Please share your journey.
I didn’t take the traditional path to medicine. Looking back, I don’t think I was ever meant to.
I was born in Denmark and raised in the United States by Pakistani immigrant parents. I was the first person in my family to pursue higher education and later became the first physician in my family. I had no clear roadmap to follow. I first had to believe that becoming a doctor was possible, then work out how to make it happen.
When I was 18, I joined the United States Air Force. I thought I had signed up for a desk job, but a few months later, I was deployed with Security Forces to Baghdad International Airport. I was still a teenager.
One day, a rocket hit a nearby group of gas tanks. I took shelter in a bunker surrounded by sandbags. In that moment, I made myself a promise: “Help me get home safely. When I get home, I won’t play small anymore. If my dream is to become a doctor, I won’t let anyone stop me.”
I came home and kept that promise.
The military gave me an opportunity that I will always be grateful for. It helped pay for my education. I earned a bachelor’s degree in Nutrition from the University of Texas at Austin, followed by a master’s degree in Medical Science and a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree. I then completed my residency in Internal Medicine and received additional training in Functional Medicine.
My journey from a teenager in a bunker in Baghdad to becoming a physician was not a straight path. But every experience prepared me for what came next.
My first job after residency was as a hospitalist, and I started just as COVID-19 hit. Suddenly, I was caring for patients in hospital wards and intensive care units during a global crisis.
I often thought about the difference between my military experience and what I was seeing in the hospital. In the military, I knew what I was fighting. During COVID, we did not fully know what we were up against.
The pandemic changed me because it made the limits of our healthcare system difficult to ignore. I had entered medicine to help people become healthier, but I was working in a system that often focused on treating illness, moving patients through quickly, and working within limits set by insurance and time.
I began asking bigger questions. What happens when we treat a symptom without understanding its cause? What happens when stress, trauma, burnout, poor sleep, or problems with the nervous system are part of the picture but are not addressed?
These questions were personal, too. I have experienced trauma and burnout. I learned that a person can look strong and successful on the outside while struggling on the inside.
Practices such as yoga, mindfulness, breathwork, meditation, and rest helped me begin to recover. I also learned to work with my nervous system instead of constantly pushing past its limits. At the time, I did not fully understand the physical processes involved. Today, research is helping us better understand the links between long-term stress, the nervous system, sleep, hormones, metabolism, and overall health.
This experience changed how I see myself and my patients. Healing is not always about trying harder. Sometimes it starts when we feel safe enough to rest and recover.
I became interested in how the brain, nervous system, hormones, metabolism, and life experiences affect our health. I wanted to understand why people can do everything they believe is right and still feel exhausted, anxious, inflamed, hormonally out of balance, or disconnected from themselves.
These systems are closely connected, especially for women. Long-term stress can affect sleep, metabolism, hormones, energy, mood, and long-term health.
I eventually realised that I could no longer ignore these questions. I stepped away from insurance-driven medicine and built the kind of practice I wished existed: one that allows more time for each person and focuses on prevention, personalised care, and the whole person.
Today, my work focuses on women’s health, longevity, nervous system regulation, hormones, metabolic health, and human performance. I combine my training in Internal Medicine with functional and lifestyle medicine, nutrition, advanced testing, and an understanding of how stress can affect health.
I also believe we need to rethink what high performance means. For years, we have praised people—especially women—for pushing through exhaustion, burnout, hormonal changes, and stress. But constantly ignoring the body’s signals is not always resilience. Real resilience can begin with learning to regulate, recover, and restore.
The promise I made in that bunker became more than a promise to become a doctor. It became a promise not to play small.
Today, that promise guides me to help others, especially women, move out of survival mode, support their health, regain their energy, and build longer, healthier lives.
Sometimes the moments that shape us most happen in places we never expected. The question is whether we have the courage to listen to what those moments teach us.
How did COVID change the way you look at medicine?
COVID changed how I see medicine. It showed me what happens when the human body is pushed to its limits and made me think more deeply about what it means to be truly healthy.
As a hospitalist during the pandemic, I cared for very sick patients. We made decisions with limited information, adapted quickly, and worked to save lives in circumstances none of us had experienced before.
The experience reminded me why I became a physician. It is a privilege to help someone when they are at their most vulnerable.
But it also made me ask a bigger question: What if we spent more time helping people build their health before they reached a crisis?
I began to think about prevention in a broader way. It is not only about preventing disease. It is also about helping the body manage stress, recover, adapt, and stay healthy over time.
Health is more than the absence of disease. It also includes resilience: how well the body responds to stress and returns to a state of recovery.
This led me to look more closely at the links between the nervous system, hormones, metabolism, sleep, nutrition, movement, and life experiences. These are not separate parts of health. They work together and affect how we function, recover, and age.
I also saw how difficult it can be for doctors to understand the whole person when they have limited time with each patient. In a busy healthcare setting, it is not always possible to look beyond the immediate problem and explore what may have contributed to it.
COVID reinforced my belief that we need both sides of medicine. We need excellent emergency and hospital care to save lives during a crisis. We also need to focus more on prevention, personalised care, and building good health before people become seriously ill.
This realisation shaped the work I do today. I want to help high-achieving women understand that success and health should not compete with each other. You should not have to sacrifice sleep, hormonal health, energy, relationships, or long-term well-being to succeed.
Sometimes a performance problem is really a recovery problem. What appears to be a hormonal issue may also involve long-term stress, metabolic health, poor sleep, or an overworked nervous system. That is why I believe we must look at the whole person.
My approach is to help people regulate, recover, improve their health, and support longevity—not simply add more demands to an already overwhelmed life.
COVID did not make me lose faith in medicine. It expanded my view of what medicine can be.
We should not only ask how to save people when they become critically ill. We should also ask how to help them stay well, perform at their best, and live longer while enjoying the lives they work so hard to build.
Who has inspired you along your journey? Please share up to three women who have supported you.
Many women have influenced my journey, but three have had a special impact on me. They have reminded me that we can be ambitious and still be human, and that our purpose is bigger than any title we hold.
Courtney Jared Bannan, a lawyer and entrepreneur, has become one of my closest friends. She has reminded me that we do not have to choose between success and being ourselves.
Courtney has shown me that we can think creatively inside and outside traditional corporate structures. We can build something meaningful without losing our personality, curiosity, or humanity. She has encouraged me to think bigger while staying true to myself.
She has also reminded me that motherhood and ambition can exist together. We do not have to put our dreams on hold because we have children, and we do not have to lose ourselves to achieve our goals. We can be mothers, professionals, leaders, and creators while still making space for who we are beyond these roles.
Our friendship gives me space to be myself—not only Dr. Remina, the physician, mother, entrepreneur, speaker, or author, but simply Remina. One of the greatest gifts a friend can offer is a place where you do not have to perform or prove yourself.
Dr. Elizabeth Trest, a board-certified obstetrician-gynaecologist, was one of the first female physicians I met who showed me that a person can be highly accomplished and deeply kind.
She was encouraging, generous with her guidance, and loved by the people around her. She saw potential in me before I fully saw it in myself. She encouraged me to believe that I could achieve what I truly committed to, and at one point, she even suggested that I consider becoming a surgeon.
Her influence went beyond career advice. She became a mentor and friend and showed me that excellence in medicine does not require us to lose our warmth or humanity. We can achieve great things while helping others feel seen, capable, and valued.
She helped me understand the kind of physician and woman I wanted to become. Her example also shaped the kind of woman I want my children to see: someone who follows her dreams while remaining kind, grounded, and generous.
Dr. Victoria Raider, founder of YU2SHINE, TEDx speaker, internationally bestselling author, and transformational coach, has inspired me in another way. She has encouraged me to look beyond the roles and achievements that can define us. Through her work and the way she lives, she shows that personal growth, spirituality, ambition, and purpose can exist together. Our worth does not have to depend on what we achieve.
What inspires me most is the person she is. Victoria is kind and supportive. She celebrates other women, encourages them, makes room for them, and lifts them up without judgment or competition. Her friendship has shown me that we can be successful while leading with kindness, generosity, and an open heart.
All three women have reinforced a lesson I now try to share with others: you do not have to become someone else to become more fully yourself.
To me, women supporting women means more than opening a door. It means recognising another woman’s potential, reminding her of it when she forgets, and creating space for her to grow while respecting who she is.
Our legacy is not only what we achieve. It is also who we become, whom we help rise, and what the next generation learns by watching us.
What lessons have you learned?
I have learned that strength and resilience do not mean constantly pushing through every difficulty.
For a long time, I thought being strong meant being able to handle anything. The military taught me discipline. Medicine taught me responsibility. Motherhood taught me another kind of endurance. Entrepreneurship taught me to keep going even when there was no clear path.
But life has also taught me that always being the strong one can come at a cost.
I have seen people pushed beyond their limits until they become unwell. They receive help, recover enough to return, and then go back to the same environment that exhausted them. I have experienced this pattern myself, and it changed how I think about healing.
We cannot heal if we keep ignoring our limits. Sometimes the strongest thing we can do is slow down, listen to our bodies, ask for help, and give ourselves time to recover. Taking care of ourselves is not weakness, and rest is not laziness. We do not have to earn the right to look after ourselves.
This lesson has influenced the way I practise medicine. I do not want to ask only, “What symptom are we treating?” I also want to understand what may be causing it and what needs to change to support lasting improvement.
That means looking at the whole person: the body, nervous system, hormones, metabolism, sleep, stress, experiences, environment, and personal story.
I have also learned that recovery takes time and has stages. When a system is overwhelmed, we cannot always expect it to perform at its best. Sometimes we need to calm and regulate first, then restore, and only then focus on optimisation and higher performance.
What works in one stage of life may not work in another. Our bodies, responsibilities, hormones, and abilities change. This is especially important for women, whose needs and circumstances can change over time.
Motherhood has also changed my idea of success. I want my children to see more than what I achieve. I want them to see a woman who follows her dreams, cares for others, grows, and has the courage to become more fully herself.
Perhaps the biggest lesson is that we do not have to make ourselves smaller to keep other people comfortable.
However, thinking bigger does not always mean doing more. It can mean being honest about who we are, protecting our energy, setting boundaries, and allowing ourselves to grow beyond the identity that once made us successful.
Through my work, I want to help people do more than live longer. I want them to have the health, energy, and ability to enjoy their lives, lead well, love deeply, spend meaningful time with their families, and do work that matters without sacrificing themselves.
Longevity is not just about adding years to life. It is about building the health, resilience, and capacity to make those years meaningful.
Are there women in healthcare who deserve recognition? (Dr Jila?)
Absolutely. Many women in healthcare deserve recognition, including women who may not have the biggest platforms or the most followers.
I want to recognise the women who make a difference every day: physicians who take extra time to listen to patients who feel unheard, nurses who speak up for patients, researchers who ask important questions, and women who create better ways to deliver care even when they are not in the spotlight.
I especially want to recognise women who are moving the conversation about women’s health forward. There is still much to learn about women’s health throughout life, including hormones, heart and metabolic health, menopause, nervous system regulation, mental well-being, and longevity. The women working in these areas are helping future generations receive care that considers the whole person instead of focusing on only one diagnosis or symptom.
I also want to recognise women who help other women grow. This may be a physician who mentors a younger doctor, a nurse who encourages a colleague to apply for a leadership role, a researcher who makes room for another woman’s ideas, or someone who shares an opportunity instead of keeping it to herself.
Some of the most impactful women in healthcare would never call themselves extraordinary. They simply show up, do their work well, care deeply, and make the path easier for the women who follow them.
To me, recognition should not be measured only by how many people know your name. It should also be measured by how many lives are better because you were there.
