Christian James Nazareth is an island doctor in Siargao Islands in the Philippines. A general practitioner of medicine with a master’s degree in public management for health systems and development, he works with various organisations for health systems design and innovations for geographically isolated and disadvantaged communities.

He currently is the chief collaborator for the Tropical Academy in Siargao Island: a mindful eco-campus where you can learn and co-create nature-based solutions centered on sustainability together with the local community.

Doc James, as his patients fondly call him, was a Doctor-to-the-Barrios (DTTB) under the Philippines’ Department of Health from 2016-2018. During those years, he was a municipal health officer of a small island community, an experience that exposed him to the deep realities of health inequity and transformed his way of practising medicine and public health.

Coming from this experience, he came up with the Barangay Health Worker (BHW) Academy, a project recognized as one of the national winners for Social Innovation in Health Initiative in 2021.

He led the design of a comprehensive training program and manual for community health workers in marginalised communities.

Since then, the manual has been translated into three languages and the program has trained more than 3,000 community health workers in over 50 municipalities in the Philippines.

Doc James is also a yoga and meditation teacher trained in India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. His current interests includes mindfulness and compassion in public health.