Katharine Barnard, MD

Reliant Foundation, Board Chair

Dr. Katharine Barnard is a family physician whose career has focused on delivering primary care to underserved populations in Worcester in coordination with the community.  Her clinical and academic interests are in community health, maternal and child health, care of refugee and immigrant families, and care of vulnerable and marginalized populations.

She currently serves as the medical director at Worcester RISE for Health, an organization providing for the health needs of new-arrival families, and also at Hector Reyes House, a residential recovery program for Latino men.  As an Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health at UMass-Chan Medical School, she delights in teaching the next generation of medical professionals about providing trauma-informed and relationship-based care. She has published works of narrative medicine celebrating resilience, love, joy and humility in medicine. Dr Barnard joined the Board of Reliant Foundation in 2018.

As a physician who has lived and worked in Worcester for 3 decades, she appreciates partnering with and supporting organizations providing critically needed services to better the health of the Central Mass community.