Biography

Dr. Paula Gardiner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at University of Massachusetts Medical School. She is also the Associate Director of Research and the director of the Group Visits Program in the Center for Integrated Primary Care. She completed a three year Clinical Research Fellowship in Complementary and Alternative Medicine Research and Faculty Development at Harvard Medical School. She received her MPH from Harvard School of Public Health. Additionally, she was awarded a NIH K award grant focusing on Integrative Medicine, technology, and health disparities. Her research concentration is patient-oriented research regarding chronic pain and evidenced based integrative medicine access in low income patients. Current research is focused on the adaptive role of an Integrative Medicine Group Visit (IMGV) which combines Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and a Medical Group Visit to support health behavior change and reducing pain and stress. With funding by Patient Centered Outcome Research Institute, she is the primary investigator on a randomized controlled trial of IMGV compared to a primary care visit in for participants with chronic pain. She is leading the implementation of this medical group visit model nationally and provides training on medical group visits around the United States. Her research also focuses on innovative technologies such as Embodied Conversational Agents and Our Whole Lives; a holistic online platform that teaches mind body techniques. Dr. Gardiner lectures nationally and internationally. She has published over 90 reviewed papers on chronic pain, technology, dietary supplements, pregnancy, preconception care, stress, and integrative medicine in underserved patients. Dr. Gardiner is the former Wellness Committee Chair at Boston Medical Center where she taught mindfulness and resiliency training to medical students, residents, and clinicians for over nine years. She has done research in the role of stress reduction skills in residency training. She is a certified instruction of the Mindfulness Practice curriculum developed by Krasner and Epstein and teaches Mindfulness skills and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction to patients with chronic conditions.

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