Meet the Doctor

Dr. Brittani James

Integrative Family Medicine

Board-Certified Family Medicine Physician specializing in integrative medicine for complex chronic disease. After more than a decade practicing on the frontlines — safety-net hospitals, community clinics, mobile health units, and leading medical outreach to asylum seekers during Chicago's humanitarian crisis — she became convinced that conventional medicine was failing patients with chronic, multi-system illness.

Too many patients cycling through specialists, accumulating diagnoses, and collecting prescriptions without anyone asking the most fundamental question: what is actually driving this? That question is the foundation of everything she does at Twin Village Health.

Education & Training

Undergraduate

Bachelor of Science, Human Biology, Cornell University

Medical School

Doctor of Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School

Residency

Family Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago (Chief Resident)

Board Certification

American Board of Family Medicine

Advanced Training

Institute for Functional Medicine · Certificate in Plant-Based Medicine, Cornell University

Licensed States

Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Utah

Honors & Awards

Chief Resident, Family Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago

Martin Luther King Legacy Award, Chicago Bulls

Golden Apple Award for Teaching Excellence, University of Illinois at Chicago

Faculty Gold Humanism Honor Society, University of Illinois at Chicago

Published in The New England Journal of Medicine

Background

Dr. James spent over a decade in community medicine in Chicago, including serving as Medical Director of a federally qualified health center on the city's South Side, helping launch and oversee a mobile health unit to expand access for underserved communities, and leading medical outreach to asylum seekers temporarily housed at Chicago police stations during the 2023-2024 humanitarian crisis.

She served as Assistant Professor of Clinical Family Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she received the Golden Apple Award for Teaching Excellence and was inducted into the Faculty Gold Humanism Honor Society.

Her academic work has been published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Her advocacy on racial justice, health equity, and the failures of the American healthcare system has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, NPR, The Atlantic, NBC Nightly News, The Associated Press, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and The Kelly Clarkson Show.

For speaking, media, and more about Dr. Brittani's work → brittanijamesmd.com

Clinical Interests

Complex Chronic Disease

Multi-system, treatment-resistant illness where patients have seen multiple doctors without answers. Root-cause investigation across body systems.

Trauma & Chronic Stress Physiology

How trauma, racism, poverty, and systemic oppression reshape cortisol, metabolism, immunity, and gut function at the biological level.

Gut-Brain Health

The bidirectional relationship between gut dysfunction and mental health symptoms — anxiety, depression, brain fog, and cognitive issues with gastrointestinal roots.

Women's Health & Hormones

Hormonal health across the full reproductive lifespan — menstrual health, PCOS, postpartum recovery, perimenopause, and menopause.

Metabolic Health & Weight

Insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and weight management through root-cause approaches — not restriction diets and willpower.

Integrative & Functional Medicine

Combining conventional diagnostics with nutritional therapy, advanced lab testing, herbal medicine, lifestyle interventions, and mind-body techniques.

Philosophy of Care

Symptoms are not the enemy. They're messages.

I see symptoms not as problems to silence, but as signals from the body asking to be heard. A patient with fatigue, weight gain, and anxiety doesn't have three separate problems — they have one story that no one has taken the time to read.

My approach blends the rigor of conventional medicine with the depth of integrative and functional frameworks. I look at the gut, the hormones, the stress response, the inflammatory load, the nutritional foundation, and the lived experience of the person in front of me. Then I build a plan that addresses the root — not just the surface.

I believe healing happens when patients understand not just what is happening in their bodies, but why. My job is to translate complexity into clarity, and to walk beside you as you take your health back into your own hands.

Become a Patient

Ready to work with Dr. Brittani?

All patients begin with a Twin Village Health membership. One membership gives you access to both Dr. Brittani and Dr. Brandi — because your body and mind deserve the same care team.

View Membership