Akivah Dixon Northern, DSc, MDiv

Research Coordinator and Facilitator, Reflection Rounds
Stanford University School of Medicine

Human beings need soothing, coompetent care in beautiful spaces to gracefully heal.

Akivah Northern, DSc MDiv is a visionary healthcare leader who plans to open health clinics where lifestyle medicine, art, spiritual and social support, architecture, education, and the ecological are brought together for healing. Akivah’s diverse personal, academic, and professional backgrounds have shaped and inspired this vision. 

As a chaplain in healthcare and academic settings, Akivah has cared for, prayed with, and learned from hundreds of patients, families, medical students, and physicians. As an ecological chaplain, Akivah led others on healing journeys worldwide including in the Kilimanjaro Mountains, along Niagara Falls, and on the shores of the Pacific Ocean where she lives. During all these experiences, Akivah found there is a sacredness in listening, storytelling, and meaning-making, and that these can profoundly affect people’s health and well-being. 

Akivah holds a Doctorate from Loma Linda University, a Master of Divinity from Yale University, and is a former student of Howard University School of Medicine. Although accepted to medical school at age 52, Akivah’s medical education was cut short by having to spend thirteen years caring for her aging mother and Auntie Bea, who lived to be 100 and 108 years old, respectively. Not being able to finish medical school was one of her greatest disappointments. 

However, Akivah’s heart was overjoyed when she was later accepted to the doctoral program at Loma Linda University, where she brought her passion for medicine and ministry together. At Loma Linda, Akivah received the prestigious Wil Alexander Award from the School of Religion for service exemplifying the healing and teaching ministry of Jesus. 

Currently, at Stanford University Akivah works with Bruce Feldstein, MD BBC, at the School of Medicine, co-facilitating an intervention called Reflection Rounds (RR). RR is a required course for medical students who are taking their core clinical clerkships. Akivah also coordinates the Stanford IRB research project on RR and her doctoral research explored Stanford medical students’ joys and challenges during patient encounters. One of Akivah’s unique findings was that when joys and challenges are experienced together, they can often be a gateway to even greater joys and professional growth and development. Akivah also found that some vital pillars of Stanford lifestyle medicine like connection, gratitude, reflection, purpose, and meaning are also important for medical student joy and well-being.