Becoming a doctor is the realization of a lifelong dream for Dr. Goldstein. Her first introduction to natural medicine was by a wise old lady, an amateur herbalist, at the age of six. Dr. Goldstein received her nursing training in Moscow, Russia, where she also worked as a cardiosurgical ICU nurse. Following her emigration to the USA, she received her B.Sc. in Medical Cytogenetics technology from the Univ. of Conn.

Realizing the constraints of allopathic medicine, Dr. Goldstein decided to attend the National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, OR. Here she earned her Doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine and gained extensive clinical experience during her 2 year internship at the NCNM’S Natural Health Clinics. Dr. Goldstein has served as an Adjunct faculty member for Chapman University and National University, and lectured extensively around Orange County.

Dr. Goldstein is a member of the California Naturopathic Doctor Association and a Fellow of the Institute for Human Individuality. Dr. Goldstein is certified in blood type specific diets & therapies.

Dr. Goldstein stays up to date on new research in alternative medicine and continually incorporates new findings in the therapies that she prescribes.

When not busy with seeing patients, Dr. G spends time with her husband and teenage daughter and loves traveling, theater, art, music, dancing, and reading.

Dr. Goldstein's Path to Medicine...

I was born and raised in the suburbs of Moscow, Russia. Since an early age, I was fascinated with medicine and healing.  I was inspired by my maternal grandmother, who was a nurse and had an unbelievable passion for helping people.  She was a nurse in a hospital during WWII, then a nurse in tubercular hospital.  She also did home visits, and would brave the weather and dangerous neighborhoods to go visit her patients.
My family and I lived in a 5 story apartment building that was adjacent to a forest. I was always fascinated by all the plants I saw in the forest.  When I was about 4 or 5 years old and already determined to become a doctor, an elderly neighbor asked me to help collect the herbs for the healing teas.  She couldn’t see very well and she needed me to be her eyes.  It was perfect; I helped her collect the herbs and she explained to me what they were used for, how to dry them, and how to make tea.  After a while, I knew enough to venture on my own and would gather enough herbs to last our family through the winter. We used those teas when someone came down with a cold or sore throat. As a kid I continued to develop my love for healing by reading about doctors of the past and by practicing my skills on homeless cats and dogs, who were abundant in Russia.  My mom always gave me the food to feed the animals and would even from time to time allow me to keep them in the house until a permanent home was found.  These animals were often injured either by local boys or the animal control service; I would treat their wounds with whatever I had at my disposal.

As I was finishing 8th grade, I learned that in order for me to apply to medical school in Russia, I needed to become a nurse first.  Without, hesitation, I quit school and applied to nursing school in Moscow.  Three years later, at age 18, I graduated nursing school and started working in a cardio-surgical ICU.  I loved my job.  And at the time was marveling and admiring all the advances of modern medicine I got to observe and utilize in the ICU.  The forest and the herbs seemed so childish compared to the grand shiny advanced drugs and surgeries.  A few months after I started working in the ICU, my dad developed a sinus infection. Despite the usual measures, it was not going away.  He asked me to get him an appointment with a specialist, which I did.  Specialist after specialist contended that he needed to be on antibiotics, and one after another was prescribed.  My dad was not getting better.  In fact, he was getting worse. He lost weight, he had muscle weakness in his legs and no one knew what was going on.  Ten months later he died from respiratory failure.  About 4 months after that we immigrated to the United States.  We arrived in the U.S. with my 80 y/o grandmother, the nurse.  She had had some heart problems that had been managed pretty well for the last few years in Russia, but in our excitement about the great and powerful American health care system, we convinced her to see a doctor here.  We thought for sure, a great American doctor is going to make her all better.  Instead, my grandmother died less than 2 months after our arrival in the U.S. Her new medications had been grossly mismanaged by this new doctor; unfortunately, her heart couldn’t take it.

I still wanted to be a doctor, but the practice of modern American medicine no longer appealed to me.  I did not want to be a part of a system that tried to cover up symptoms with one drug after another.  I knew that there was a different way.
As I was completing my Bachelor’s degree at UConn, I frantically searched for a medical school with an herbal department, but to no avail.  And then one day, I was looking through UConn’s newspaper, and there in a corner was a small ad for National College of Naturopathic Medicine.  I knew nothing about it, but I sent away for more information.  When I got the packet from the college, I knew my prayers had been answered.  What the brochure described was exactly what I as looking for.  It involved healing and helping people by looking at the cause of the problem, treating them as a whole and individually and using natural substances to bring about a balance in the body.  I was ecstatic.
As the brochure suggested, I visited several naturopathic doctors in Connecticut, and they confirmed everything that the brochure said.  I was sold.  In the summer of 1996, my mom, my daughter and I packed our belongings and moved to Portland, OR so that I could attend NCNM, the oldest naturopathic school in the US.

My philosophy is based on six basic principles of Naturopathic Medicine:

1. First do no harm
2. Believe in the healing power of nature
3. Treat the whole person
4. Identify and treat the cause
5. Prevention is the best cure
6. Doctor as teacher.

I believe in the partnership relationship between a patient and a doctor.

Such a relationship will empower the patient to take charge of his or her health and to make the necessary and desirable changes to improve the quality of life.

I, as the doctor, will provide support, encouragement and guidance to facilitate your journey to optimal health.

You, as the patient, will need desire, courage and commitment to embark on this journey.

How my approach is different ...

Steve is no stranger to adversity and is well qualified to inspire those who are confronted with ADD and physical disability to face those challenges successfully.  At the age of 7, he was diagnosed with a bone tumor in his right upper femur.  While ultimately losing a leg and adapting to a prosthesis would be daunting for many, it didn’t hold him back. He went on to compete as a  swimmer in high school, became an accomplished snow skier, even serving as a volunteer ski instructor at Mammoth Mtn Ski Area in California during college to teach other handicapped individuals how to ski. All the while, he continued to successfully pursue his academic goals.

Steve’s experiences adapting to the challenges of life without his right leg forged an initial interest in medicine that influenced both his intellectual and professional development.  After earning a Bachelors Degree in Biological Sciences from UC Irvine he went on to achieve a Masters in Public Health: Epidemiology from San Diego State University.  He took on a Health Analyst role for Columbia Healthcare for 1 year in Los Angeles in 1995.

As fruitful and as challenging as these experiences were, he realized that his heart lay in teaching. In 1996 he decided to go into teaching full time and secured teaching credentials.  By the fall of 1997 he was teaching high school science in the Capistrano Unified School District in Orange County where he has remained for the past 18 years. Steve now teaches Biology, Health, & General Science full-time at Tesoro High School in Rancho Santa Margarita, California.

Seeking yet more educational challenges, he became an adjunct faculty member for National University in 2001, teaching classroom management as well as an online health course for professional educators.  Even with these extra challenges, he felt a hunger to contribute more to society, particularly for those who faced special educational challenges.  He took courses on the brain and learning styles through UC Irvine’s Gifted Learning Program.  But it was at the Learning Brain Expo in January 2007 that his sense of mission began to crystallize.  It was here that he felt called to enroll in the ADD Coaching Academy.  After successfully completing this specialized program, Steve began to coach both teens and adults one-on-one in meeting the special challenges that ADD carries such as learning to focus on strengths versus negative thought patterns, improving organization, academic performance and life skills for work and healthy relationships.

When he is not busy teaching or coaching, Steve spends time with his wife, grown up daughter, and 3 year old son, and enjoys singing and playing guitar, periodically performing as a singer/songwriter, woodworking, traveling, snow skiing, cycling, swimming, kayaking, & exploring nature.

My ADD Story

I'm often asked, "What all of a sudden made you want to work with individuals with ADD?"

Interestingly enough, my response has been that I have really been involved with ADD all my life; I always knew something was amiss, but I could never put my finger on it.

I was hyper as a kid, but I really can't say that I recognized a pattern until high school. I could be talking to someone in conversation or be reading a textbook and I would suddenly find myself lost in thought on something else. I would not remember 30 seconds of what someone had just said to me or a paragraph I had just read.

In the case of listening, I would get diverted to a negative thought or a conversation from the past would cycle through in my head and then, because I had missed the conversation, I felt impelled to interrupt with my own comment after being stuck on my own agenda.

 Daydreaming & ADD

In the case of reading, I would then have to go back and re-read the passage, but sure enough I would again fall into a trance and when I snapped out of it, I discovered that again I hadn't comprehended the material.

Even though I was a slow reader and this daydreaming cycle persisted, I developed coping strategies and did well in high school; I actually earned straight A's throughout my 4 years.

What I didn't realize was that I was studying all the time to accomplish this; I would start studying after dinner, but because my brain liked the stimulation of being near the TV and family arguments, I was easily distracted and would draw out to hours what should have taken a half hour to an hour to complete.

More ADD Symptoms

The challenges of ADD manifested further in college. As I searched for my ideal learning style, I determined that I was a verbal processor and that saying notes out loud helped me to remember material.

I also always had to have something in my hand when I studied or my nervous energy would cause me to pull the threads out of my shirts or socks. I had a habit in college of staying up way late into the night to study when everyone else was asleep.

The ADD Brain & Sleep

I now know that, in addition to diminished neural activity in the prefrontal cortex, ADD is associated with a build up of cortisol, one of your stress hormones, and if levels don't diminish at night as they should to make you tired, it has the effect as it did for me of keeping your motor going into the night. The consequence of that was that I was sluggish in the morning; my brain cortisol levels were now lower by that time, but I hadn't really slept, and if I was then put in a high pressure situation like a test, to perform at that time, I could never think as clearly as I wanted.

Accommodations/Success

My initial plan as a biology major at UC Irvine was to apply to medical school, but this ADD cycle ultimately caused me to perform poorly when I took the MCAT, the Medical College Admissions Test, on two occasions, which lead me to revise my life plan.

I didn't realize until I was evaluated for ADD in 1997 that I had unique brain wiring that warranted testing accommodations which I finally utilized when I took my subject matter competency tests for teaching.

I ultimately realized what many ADD books say, that success dealing with ADD amounted to finally choosing the right profession, teaching, and the right partner in life in 2000.

My philosophy is based on six basic principles of Naturopathic Medicine:

1. First do no harm
2. Believe in the healing power of nature
3. Treat the whole person
4. Identify and treat the cause
5. Prevention is the best cure
6. Doctor as teacher.

I believe in the partnership relationship between a patient and a doctor.

Such a relationship will empower the patient to take charge of his or her health and to make the necessary and desirable changes to improve the quality of life.

I, as the doctor, will provide support, encouragement and guidance to facilitate your journey to optimal health.

You, as the patient, will need desire, courage and commitment to embark on this journey.

Depending on whether I'm helping a child, a teen, an adolescent or an adult, my approach my include...