Profile

Dzung X. Vo, MD, FAAP, is a pediatrician specializing in adolescent medicine at British Columbia Children's Hospital, and clinical associate professor at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine, Vancouver, Canada. He co-developed (with Dr. Jake Locke) a mindfulness training program called MARS-A, or Mindful Awareness and Resilience Skills for Adolescents. MARS-A is a developmentally appropriate adaptation of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), for youth with chronic stress, chronic pain, depression, and anxiety. Dr. Vo also developed a Mindful Healing course for health care providers, adapted from Mindful Practice (Ron Epstein and Michael Krasner) and other sources. Dr. Vo is the author of The Mindful Teen: Powerful Skills to Help You Handle Stress One Moment at a Time (New Harbinger, 2015). Dr. Vo also serves on the Board of Directors of the Mindfulness in Education Network (MiEN), and is also the founding Director for the BC Children’s Hospital Centre for Mindfulness.

Dr. Vo has been practicing mindfulness regularly since 1999. Dr. Voa's root teacher is the Vietnamese Zen Master, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and author, Thich Nhat Hanh. Dr. Vo has also been deeply inspired by the pioneers of the mindfulness movement in the West, including Jon Kabat-Zinn, Jack Kornfield, Zindel Segal, Daniel Siegel, and many others. Dr. Vo hopes to share the benefits of mindfulness to diverse youth in a universal, secular way that is appropriate for anyone, of any religion, or no religion at all.