Paula Marie Gardiner

Paula Marie Gardiner, MD is an Associate Professor at UMass Chan Medical School with appointments in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the T.H. Chan School of Medicine and the Department of Population Health Sciences at the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She practices at Cambridge Health Alliance in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she focuses on integrative approaches to chronic conditions and health disparities.

Dr. Gardiner earned her MD from Tufts University School of Medicine. Her research program centers on mindfulness-based interventions, integrative medicine approaches to chronic pain management, medical group visits, and addressing health disparities through innovative care models. She has developed and studied interventions that combine mindfulness practices with medical group visits, particularly for underserved populations including racial and ethnic minorities, low-income patients, and women with chronic conditions.

Her publication record shows a consistent trajectory of research on integrative approaches to chronic pain, with recent work expanding into areas such as physician burnout, Long COVID, and digital health interventions. She has pioneered synchronous online mindfulness training programs and teaching kitchen medical group visits for hypertension management. Her work often addresses the intersection of mental health and chronic physical conditions, with a particular focus on how mindfulness practices can improve outcomes for vulnerable populations.

• Comment from the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine & Health on CDC Opioid Guidelines (2022)
• Self-Compassion for Healthcare Communities: Effects on Physician Burnout (2025)
• Women in Control 2.0: Diabetes Management for Minority Women (2023)

Dr. Gardiner has received attention for her work on integrative approaches to chronic pain, with multiple publications highlighted by news outlets, social media, and policy documents. Her research on medical group visits for chronic conditions has been referenced in clinical guidelines and cited extensively in the literature. She collaborates with researchers across multiple institutions and disciplines, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of her work in integrative medicine and health disparities research.