About
Dr. Rowena Chua, MD
Triple board-certified in Neurology, Integrative Medicine, and Obesity Medicine. Fellowship-trained by Dr. Andrew Weil at the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine. Founder of Meliora Integrative Medicine. In practice in Evanston, Illinois since 2013.
Why Meliora
Why Meliora exists.
In about ninety seconds, Dr. Chua shares why she founded Meliora in 2013 — and what makes the care here different. Not only to treat your symptoms, but for you to truly understand what's happening in your body, and why.
“We read your labs through an optimal lens — where your body actually functions best, not just whether you fall inside a broad normal range.”
Start with a comprehensive assessment →90 sec · Rowena Chua, MD · Founder, Meliora Integrative Medicine
The Name
Meliora — Latin for “better.”
In 2013, Dr. Chua founded Meliora Integrative Medicine. Meliora is Latin for better, and Semper ad Meliora means “always toward the pursuit of better.” As a physician, she is always looking for a better way to practice medicine — pursuing better ways to help her patients.
Mission
Meliora Integrative Medicine exists to provide better ways for patients to achieve optimal health, healing, and wellness.
Vision
To improve overall healthcare by focusing all efforts on optimization of quality of life and prevention of disease.
A rare combination of expertise.
Most physicians specialize in one system. Dr. Chua's training spans three — and the intersection of those three disciplines is precisely what makes the Meliora Method possible.
Her background in Neurology informs how she understands the nervous system's role in hormonal balance, stress response, and brain health. Her board certification in Integrative Medicine shapes the whole-person, root-cause lens she applies to every patient. Her specialization in Obesity Medicine means that when weight is part of the clinical picture, she addresses it with the same depth and precision she brings to every other system.
This combination allows her to navigate clinical complexity that falls between specialties — the cases where a neurologist, a gynecologist, and an endocrinologist might each see only their piece of the puzzle.
Board Certified
Neurology
Board Certified
Integrative Medicine
Board Certified
Obesity Medicine
Fellowship Training
Trained by Dr. Andrew Weil at the University of Arizona.
Early in her career, Dr. Chua watched younger and younger patients arrive at the hospital with strokes — leaving with long medication lists and few answers about why it happened or how to prevent it from happening again. She knew there was a better way.
That conviction led her to complete a two-year Integrative Medicine fellowship directly under Dr. Andrew Weil at the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine — the program that established the clinical standard for the field. The fellowship shaped how Dr. Chua approaches every patient: whole-person, evidence-based, and built on the understanding that the body's systems do not operate in isolation.
Dr. Weil's program trains physicians to look at the full picture — lifestyle, nutrition, nervous system, hormones, stress — before reaching for a prescription pad. That philosophy is the foundation of the Meliora Method.
Fellowship
University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine
Dr. Andrew Weil — Two-year program
The Path
Three timelines that explain Meliora.
How Dr. Chua trained, what she certified in, and how the practice itself was built — tap any section to expand.
Education & Training
University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine
Two-year fellowship at the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine under Dr. Andrew Weil — the program that established the clinical standard for integrative medicine. The framework Meliora is built on starts here.
Rush University Medical College
Subspecialty fellowship in clinical neurophysiology — EEG, EMG, and the diagnostic instruments behind much of how the brain and nervous system are clinically read.
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Three-year neurology residency. The neurological lens still shapes how Dr. Chua interprets every patient — brain, hormones, gut, stress, and metabolism as one connected system.
New York Medical College — Metropolitan Hospital
Internal medicine training that became the clinical foundation everything specialty-level was built on.
University of Santo Tomas
M.D. from the University of Santo Tomas. The starting line for a career that has now touched neurology, integrative medicine, obesity medicine, and the building of a small, deliberate practice.
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Bachelor of Science in Psychobiology — a deliberately interdisciplinary undergraduate path that sits behind the way Meliora reads patients today: never just one organ, never just one symptom.
Certifications & Specialties
Board certified by the American Board of Obesity Medicine. Underpins Meliora's medical weight optimization programs — including thoughtful integration of GLP-1 medications when clinically appropriate, never as a standalone fix.
Board certified by the American Board of Physician Specialties in Integrative Medicine, after completing the two-year Weil fellowship at the University of Arizona.
Specialty training and ongoing CME in bioidentical hormone replacement therapy — the foundation of Meliora's Hormone Rebalancing pillar and the most common reason patients arrive at the practice.
Board certified in Neurology by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology after residency at Northwestern Feinberg and clinical neurophysiology fellowship at Rush. The neurological lens still shapes Meliora today: brain, hormones, gut, and metabolism read as one connected system.
The Practice
Meliora launches Guided Precision Care — a redesigned site (v4), the Meli chatbot trained on the Meliora Method,™ AI-assisted lab interpretation, and AI-augmented DEXA analysis. AI does not replace the physician; it protects her time so she can stay in the room with the patient.
Twelve years of clinical pattern recognition formalize into the five-pillar framework: Hormone Rebalancing · Nutrient Repletion · Gut and Detox Optimization · Stress and Adrenal Regulation · Metabolic and Mitochondrial Support. The Method becomes the spine of every treatment plan.
The current Evanston office opens with a dedicated DEXA scan room, an IV Therapy suite, a clinical exam space, and a proper waiting area — all under one roof, all built around how patients actually move through the practice.
During the pandemic, Meliora moves to a larger Evanston space with a dedicated waiting room. Demand for hormonal, metabolic, and root-cause care accelerates as long-haul symptoms force a national reckoning with conventional care.
Meliora opens at the Heartwood Center for Body, Mind, and Spirit in Evanston — a single physician, a single exam room, and a clear thesis: root-cause integrative medicine for patients told their labs were "normal."
There is always a better way to serve patients.
Dr. Chua founded Meliora in 2013 because she saw a gap she couldn't unsee: patients whose symptoms were real, whose suffering was real, but whose labs came back “normal” — and who were sent home without answers.
Conventional medicine, at its best, is excellent at diagnosing and treating disease. But there is a space between “not sick” and “feeling fully well” — and most healthcare systems have no framework for that space. Meliora was built to fill it.
Over 12 years of practice, Dr. Chua has refined a set of protocols — tested across hundreds of patients — that address the physiological imbalances conventional medicine most often misses: suboptimal hormones, undetected nutrient deficiencies, adrenal strain, metabolic dysfunction. The Meliora Method is the clinical expression of that refinement.
“I believe healing requires both science and compassion. Prevention is more powerful than reaction. And patients deserve to feel fully well — not just ‘not sick.’”
What care looks like at Meliora.
Every patient relationship at Meliora begins the same way: Dr. Chua reads your intake before she meets you. She reviews your labs before your consultation. She asks about your sleep, your energy, your mood, your digestion, your pain, your stress — because no symptom is irrelevant and no system exists in isolation.
Her treatment philosophy is built on a simple discipline: use the least number of interventions needed for the most meaningful improvement. Not more supplements than necessary. Not more complexity than the patient can sustain. The goal is always the most effective path — not the most impressive-looking one.
Visits are unhurried. Explanations are complete. Every recommendation comes with a reason. Dr. Chua treats patients as intelligent adults who are capable of understanding their own physiology — because patients who understand their care are the ones who follow through and heal.
What you will not experience here.
Tap any item for the why.
Being told "everything looks fine" when you don't feel fine
Generic supplement lists without personalization
Treatment without explanation
Rushing through a visit
Treating your labs without connecting them to your symptoms
Being dismissed for asking questions
The Standard
Semper ad Meliora.
“Always toward the pursuit of better.” This is not a tagline — it is the standard we hold ourselves to for every patient, every visit, every plan.
We provide personalized, integrative care that addresses root causes, optimizes health, and improves quality of life. We measure our outcomes not just in lab values, but in how patients feel and function.
Meet Dr. Chua in person — Book a Consultation →
